Big Shoes to Fill
by Ee4ee
Summary: A Latias watching over a vacant home gets to know its new resident. Together, they seek to move on from prior losses, and get tangled in the issues of others around them as they try to reconcile their pasts with their futures.
1. Introduction

Latias' head shot up as she was startled awake. A loud sound had roused her, though nothing in her cavern home moved. Silence stretched for several long moments before another loud thump echoed through the cave from above. Something – or someone – had dropped a heavy object on the floor of the basement above, the basement of a house Latias had protected during its decade-long vacancy. If the run-down house on Manisees Island's northeast tip had finally been purchased, Latias had a new challenge ahead of her.

She rose from the pile of pillows that passed for her bed, reluctantly relinquishing the psychic embrace imprinted upon them. After arranging her glassy down to become invisible, Latias left her cave and flew along the short bluffs between the property and the sea. She found a large boat tied to the private dock facing the bay, which sat across the house's long driveway from her cavern home. She estimated the trawler-style cruiser to be about fifteen meters in length, though a line of boxes beside it stretched longer still. A much smaller boat sat on top of it, its function at the topmost deck's rear a mystery to her.

Nobody had approached the house from the island's large bay before, but it explained why Latias hadn't heard their arrival. Assuming this human had a right to be there – Latias knew there was a strict procedure to such affairs, with a large sum of money changing hands – they had never investigated the house's condition before they started to move in, unless a quick visit had occurred during her morning island patrol. Legality mattered little to her; if this person truly planned to stay, it would change her whole life. A strange mix of apprehension and joy filled her at such thoughts.

As she flew in front of the large vessel, a pale blue creature came into view. It looked to her like a Ninetales, but its coloration and different fur texture marked it as a breed she was unfamiliar with. The blue Ninetales lifted its head and called out towards the house. When Latias spun in place, she saw a man standing on the porch, with a more traditional breed of Ninetales by his side. Both pokémon looked young to her, no more than a decade. The man must have acquired them after he became an adult, unlike many inhabitants of Manisees Island, who started their lives as trainers in their late teens.

The man walked downhill towards the dock, towing a handcart behind him. The cream-colored Ninetales stayed close to him, even hopping across the gap to board the boat when he did. When the man failed to close the cabin's rear door behind him, Latias took her opportunity to dart inside.

Only a couple boxes remained inside the cabin, which gave Latias room to dart to her right when she discovered the Ninetales had settled down on a couch beside the door. Her disguise might fool eyes, but noses were a different story. Fortunately, the creature's focus remained welded to a set of stairs in the room's forward right corner. Its trainer must have disappeared that way.

Caught between a desire to explore this new curiosity and a desire to leave the Ninetales' presence as soon as possible, Latias selected a set of stairs on the forward wall's other side. These led her down to a lower deck. Its narrow hallway required her to lift her wings vertically just to fit, and its two angles were designed with a vertical posture like humans rather than her horizontal one. Moving forward without bumping into anything demanded careful navigation, but Latias soon found her way into a stateroom at its end, lower deck's furthest forward point. It was well-appointed, like the lounge area before it, and other doors in the short hallway indicated there was more to this vessel than this. With a boat like this all to himself, why did he even need a house?

As footsteps sounded from above, Latias realized the room's only other exit – a small sunroof hatch above the bed – was too small for her to fit through. She had trapped herself.

Mentally, she kicked herself for falling into such a stupid situation. Clayton had always chided her for putting herself in circumstances that could reveal her to others; this certainly wasn't her first time in such a predicament. How disappointed he would be if it proved to be her last. She wanted to meet this newcomer on her own terms. Her terms didn't dictate she be stowed away in his bedroom aboard his boat without his knowledge.

Fortunately, his footsteps grew fainter once more. Latias slowly exited the stateroom, drifting through the short, twisty and narrow hallway to leave. A door set in the back wall opposite the stateroom smelt of faint fuel fumes, but nothing else caught her attention as she floated back upstairs. The Ninetales had left, and the rear door still lay open. Perfect. She quickly maneuvered back into open air's safety.

For the remaining daylight hours, she contented with watching the man and his pokémon from afar, still too spooked by her misstep to pursue any further up-close investigations. One by one, boxes disappeared from the dock, hauled inside by man and handcart. Through windows she could see many of them ended up on the second floor. The dock was cleared before sunset.

The two Ninetales cavorted in the front yard, avoiding those sand-eroded bluffs that comprised all but the property's southern boundary. In their emotions Latias sensed a joy of newfound freedom, and a pleasure of a long journey concluded. She wondered just how far the three had come to end up here.

Against this display of liberation and enthusiasm, dinner proved a pathetic affair. The foxes ate dry food, and the man a couple sandwiches. There was little there to discover, beside the bluish Ninetales revealing itself to be an Ice-type when the man realized the freezer was broken.

Latias took this opportunity to pause her observation, and left to begin her evening patrol of her island home.

Despite much activity on her little peninsula, and the great change it represented for her, the rest of Manisees Island continued on as it always had. Hovering over downtown, she watched as tourists hustled from window to window on the main drag, browsing for those perfect last-minute souvenirs to take home. Others finalized arrangements with Manisees Island's only hotel. The tourists had time to spare; Latias heard a squall on the mainland had delayed their ferry by eleven minutes.

The backroads of town, those parts of the island the locals lived, were already quiet. A distinct scent of two-stroke exhaust still lingered in above longer roads leading to further parts of the island. Latias knew most pokémon found this smell very off-putting, but she enjoyed it when not overwhelming. Such miniature vehicles comprised Manisees' lifeblood, flowing through its paved arteries and packed-dirt veins, and this proof of their passing told her its heart still beat.

The island's wetlands and meadows bustled with pokémon during the crepuscular shift change between diurnal and nocturnal species, a commotion as important to Latias as those vehicles traveling roads. Pokémon represented many important things to the island, from evidence that its wilds still flourished under human protection, to companionship for locals, to sightseeing opportunities for the tourism industry that comprised Manisees' economic backbone. The remarkable natural preservation of about half the island's area was a particular point of pride for Latias, and one of the biggest reasons she had dedicated several decades of her life to its protection, hidden in shadows.

Satisfied her island hummed with its regular activity, Latias set off for the lighthouse at its northwestern point. Manisees Lighthouse's lantern room was her second-favorite place. Here she stayed during the first years of her life she could remember, and here Clayton had found her. Nowadays it not only served as an aid to navigation, but also a museum.

Entering its lantern room, she found its lightkeepers still inside, trading local scuttlebutt a floor below. Word of the events across the bay had already reached them. Latias learned the man's name was Michael, and that he had indeed purchased the house. She listened to their news and gossip awhile longer from her perch atop the lighthouse's lens assembly, spinning around thrice a minute as it did. When one lightkeeper started climbing stairs to check the lamp, Latias shook off her intoxicating dizziness and darted out into the crisp night air before they had a chance to find her.

She turned and made her way back to the house, skimming the calm water's surface. When she returned, she found the man sitting at a desk in his bedroom with his head in his hands. The two Ninetales sat on the bed atop its new mattress, pilfered from his boat's stateroom, contenting themselves with each other's presence but sending occasional glances the man's way. She could easily feel all emotions in the room: from the man's overwhelming sorrow to the concern of his two friends.

Her invisible vigil continued for a couple hours, watching the man Michael, trying to discern his secrets and any reasons behind this font of negative emotion from him. While his actions betrayed no cause, his sadness leeched into Latias' own heart. She watched as he stood from the desk and sat on the bed, bundling his foxes in his arms. She watched as he fell asleep sandwiched between them, and they rearranged their many tails to cover him like a blanket before they followed suit. She watched as an errant breeze through an open window rocked a crumpled-up ball of paper on the desk where he had before sat.

The hours of maintaining invisibility started to wear on Latias as she drifted back around to the other side of the house. There, a door connected a study room to a balcony, one she knew had long since lost its ability to fully close. It swung open now with a long but quiet creak, and after a few moments of nobody investigating, Latias relaxed her glassy feathers into their normal configuration. She'd manipulated them for far longer today than she had done any day in the last ten years, and the effort drained her.

She hovered through the dusty study, past a drawing desk and old picture frames, width-wise across the second floor's hallway, and into the master bedroom. She knew floorboards near the door creaked whenever trod on, and she was glad she didn't have to risk them. As she approached the desk, the blue-furred Ninetales sighed and shifted position. Latias froze, prepared to bolt back through where she came, but it seemed the fox only stirred in its sleep instead of waking. Even asleep, Michael still emitted a deluge of negative emotions, and they made Latias skittish.

She carefully retrieved the wadded-up piece of paper, sitting beside a photo of Michael with a woman and two kids. Regarding the picture for a moment, Latias wondered if he was preparing this house for their eventual arrival, and his sadness was simply missing them. Thoughts of being around children brought her some solace through the depressing emotional barrage as she slowly hovered back out into the night.

Upon returning to her cave, she carefully flattened and spread the crumped paper, placing it besides an eyeglass case and a set of clothes within a drawer of a low table, her cave's only piece of furniture. Tomorrow she would analyze it, and try to discern why Michael was so upset. For now, sleep beckoned.

His sadness still colored her own mood as she sunk back into the plushy pile she called a bed. She buried herself into its depths, not stopping until she reached a mattress at the bottom, then gathering up the displaced articles, placing them around and atop her. The psychic remnants they exuded brought her only a shadow of the comfort they normally did. She endured this waning contentment for a little while before turning her attention inward.

She reached into a hole in her mind. The hole from which she had derived joy of life for so long, playing in the spaces to which it used to lead. The hole that now showed only psychic static, mocking her for never closing her connection to Clayton after his death. The mechanics of sending a message were different with no mind on the other end. It didn't matter; she expected no response.

 _"A man moved into your house today. I think he comes from far across the sea. He has two pokémon with him, but I don't think he's like the ones you warned me about. He's hurting, and I'll find out why, and how I can make him happy, because it's what you'd want; me to meet him, to help him."_ She choked up, losing her grasp on the message for a moment as this simple act brought forth the crushing weight of Clayton's absence anew. _"Because you always told me how much you hated how I was alone. Like I am now, without you."_

Latias flung the message through the gaping wound in her mind, watching it fizzle into the void beyond with no recipient. Then, her resolve weakened by the day's exertions and Michael's emotional assault earlier, she succumbed to her tears and cried herself to sleep.


	2. Part One: First Contact

After her morning patrol and a hearty nap, Latias had been prepared to tackle the problem of the purloined paper. To her chagrin, her salvaged letter proved almost entirely incomprehensible. Michael – she could at least read his name, printed neatly in the unmolested label at the top of the stationery – had crossed out almost every word with various scribbles and streaks of ink. Emotional residue, her greatest tool, was thick and layered in so many places that it proved almost as impenetrable. Even the few coherent fragments themselves yielded little. Here, the mention of a female, with affection associated. There, a note of pride accompanying an aborted description of some task. Michael connected the Ninetales to others not mentioned. At least this information could paint for Latias a picture; she guessed Michael intended to send this aborted draft to the people in the picture on his desk. Considering the emotions involved, they were probably his family. None of this information, however, illuminated a way forward.

Latias placed the unrumpled letter on the surface of the low table, taking the picture frame that occupied part of the space and placing it face-down on the paper so it wouldn't flutter away with a breeze, before returning to trying to figure out what to do.

The puttering sound of one of the island's fleet of mopeds brought Latias out of her thoughts, and after shrouding herself, out of her cave as well. An old lady drove it at a leisurely pace up the sloped driveway. Latias recognized her face; the woman occasionally delivered baskets of pastries and confections to the house, addressed to 'they know who they are'. Latias knew the woman lived and worked in town, but had only seen her in passing before Clayton passed away.

Latias quickly darted through the air to hover over the roof of the porch, and heard Michael emerge from below. The emotional signature of dissipating tension surrounded him, slowly being replaced by curiosity as the old woman dismounted, removed her helmet, and walked up the footpath. The grey-haired lady waved cheerfully, and moved at a pace remarkable for her age and borderline obesity. Michael said nothing as she approached.

"Hope you're finding the place to your liking," the woman said, with a fried, broken voice. Latias blinked; she had never heard the woman speak in the past decade. Latias smelled the trace scent of cigarettes on the offering baskets that were left here, but with a voice like that the lady must have been quite a smoker.

"It could use some work," Michael responded, "but I needed a big project anyway." In contrast to the lady's loud, rough voice, his was clear and quiet. "I was expecting a little more time before I had any guests. I'd invite you inside, but the furniture is in poor shape." Latias heard Michael shift his weight, but couldn't see how he changed his stance. She slowly drifted away from the porch to get a better viewing angle as he continued again. "I didn't even know anyone realized I was here. Word must get around fast."

The grey-haired woman laughed, a rough grating sound that still somehow carried her cheer. "Everyone knows each other here, except for the tourists. Even they hardly ever come alone, I think you're the only one here with nobody else!" Latias felt a wave of remorse emanate from Michael as the woman peered into the windows of the house before her. "Everyone knows each other here with one exception, that I was hoping you'd clear up for me. Have you come across the house's current occupant?"

Michael turned to look back at the house himself, as if just seeing it for the first time. "No, it was abandoned when I got here. Looked like it had been for a long time. Is there someone I need to talk to?"

The lady laughed again. "The only person who you would've been able to talk to about it has been dead for a decade. I was hoping you'd be able to tell me who has been staying here! I wanted to give whoever they are my appreciation for keeping the place standing." The final sentence heartened Latias as much as the first stung, and she allowed herself some satisfaction of a stewardship well-executed.

"Well I haven't seen anyone, but if I do, I'll tell them someone was looking for them."

"Tell them to come to the café on Tide Street, ask for Nola. My daughter runs the place, she'll be able to get ahold of me." The woman looked over the house again before putting her hands on her hips and sighing. "If they come around, tell them that I said hi, and ask them if we could finally put a name to 'they know who they are'."

"Will do," Michael replied. He spoke a little slower and more careful, Latias could pick up a note of caution surfacing in his emotions. "I'll stop by sometime either way, I'd like to know more about this place."

"Bring something to take notes, I can tell you the whole history of the town," the lady replied, before heading back to her motor scooter. Michael waved her off, and Latias flew around the house to the balcony in the back as he turned to go back inside. The spark of a plan flared to life in her mind.

Slowly opening the door, she drifted over the recently-swept floor to the drawing table. A random collection of blueprints or designs sat atop it, and the pictures which used to hang on the walls were gathered in a loose pile in a nearby corner. Latias bristled at the treatment of the frames while she reached for her objective; a pen sitting in the desk's tray. She promised herself she'd come back for the discarded pictures as she snatched the writing implement and quickly exited the building.

Back in her cave, she tore a strip off the top of the crinkled paper and flipped it over to the clean side. Holding the pen in an iron grip she slowly wrote out; THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE. The lines were painstakingly drawn straight, and the curves drawn careful and perfect. The entire exercise took Latias almost five minutes; her hands were very different than a human's, not well-suited for handwriting.

The now-standing picture that had weighted the recovered note depicted two figures. Clayton, half the age she first met him, wrapping his arm around the waist of a woman equally young. The woman, named Anne, provided Latias her human form, learned from Clayton's memories. This illusion allowed Latias to experience the town at ground level, by Clayton's side. In the end it had become much more, and for that reason Latias hadn't used it since. Now, it could serve her once more.

With the strip of paper in-hand, Latias flew out to the front yard. Near the base of the hill that led up to the top of the bluffs the house sat on was a large, old tree. Latias hid behind it as she slipped into her human appearance. She found she remembered all the little details despite the recent disuse, and the act gave her a little thrill. With the confidence boost, she stepped out from behind the tree and started to approach the house on 'foot'.

In the front yard, Michael played with the cream-colored Ninetales, stopping before long as the fox noticed her approach. Even from this distance, she could hear him make a comment to his pokémon about the peculiarity of two visitors in one day.

Getting as close to any sort of canid pokémon as she was now always made her nervous. Their keen senses of smell had the best chance of anything to detect her true nature. Ninetales in particular were very intelligent. To her surprise however, it stayed quiet when she drew near, no indication it knew anything was strange except a slight huff.

"Who might you be?" Michael asked, as she got within easy speaking distance. She held the piece of paper out to him, the text cleanly visible. She felt his demeanor change as he read the clear print, curiosity pushing aside all his other emotions. "You know, someone just stopped by looking for you," he said with a smile when he looked back up.

At first, Latias smiled back. Cold fear spread throughout her mind however when Michael's emotional signature shifted suddenly as he turned the strip of paper over. On the back of the strip was a sizable portion of the top of the emblem from the stationery his original letter had been written on.

A wave of hostility surged outward from Michael, quickly being withdrawn behind a wall of guarded caution. "How did you get this?" he asked, with the same slow, careful speech she heard him use earlier.

She raised an arm to point to the master bedroom where it faced the front, but aborted the gesture mid-attempt. Instead she just pointed towards the front door and waved her hand around in a vague manner, indicating the whole structure.

Michael's emotional signature picked up a tinge of panic, but outwardly he remained collected. "We haven't left the house since we got here, and my pokémon should have been able to detect you," he looked down at the Ninetales, which huffed again, its tails writhing in agitation. He looked back up at Latias, and his composed demeanor cracked. "What are you…?"

Latias pointed at the scrap of paper, with greater urgency this time. He folded the piece of paper and shredded it into several pieces in response. "This doesn't tell me anything!" Though every instinct was telling her to flee, Latias just took a step back. She had to recover this somehow. She didn't dare reveal herself now, she was positive if she did she would be attacked. After a moment she slowly drew the letter A in the air, repeating the gesture several times.

"Ay? What is that supposed to be, a name? Or an answer? You're a what? Why don't you say anything?"

Latias made the A gesture again, with sharp chopping motions. Without warning, the Ninetales leapt at her, and even as she dodged out of the way she realized her movements may have seemed aggressive. The pokémon exhaled violently, and Latias saw the air shimmer wildly from the oppressive heat, creating small shock fronts of thermal and pressure differentials.

She didn't even bother to manipulate the illusion to give the impression of turning around, instead just flipping it to show its back and starting to fly away. Despite flying backwards to allow her to face the threat, she moved at a speed that even well-trained sprinters would be hard-pressed to keep up with, and she wasn't altogether sure she was able to make the illusion's flat-out run convincing.

Darting behind the tree at the bottom of the hill to hide herself from sight, Latias dispelled the image and rendered herself completely invisible. Now free of any limitations, she darted around the base of the bluffs and straight into her cavern home. She shook badly from fright, and drew in the lingering impressions of the fabric she buried herself in to create a mental presence she could focus on to calm herself down.

Beyond the unexpected aggression, part of her wondered if she had forever lost any chance to be on friendly terms with this new arrival. Fatigue replaced adrenaline as it wore off, and after making sure the illusions protecting the cave entrance were working, she fell into a depressed funk, mulling over lost opportunities and future complications.

By the time sunset approached, signaling the start of her evening patrol, no answers had emerged. Residents in town mentioned a storm expected that night, but this only fostered a detached interest in her, preoccupied as she was with her unfortunate situation.

* * *

The night's darkness lifted for a single moment as a spike of lightning augmented Palatine Light's beacon. Thunder reached Latias' chimney-top perch immediately after, the half-mile distance providing no perceptible delay.

She had always loved thunderstorms, more so after Clayton borrowed a strange tutor machine to teach her to how to tame them. Now she could cavort with the storm, fly through its power and bask in its fury. The easiest work is fun work, and Latias viewed this most critical part of house protection as playtime.

The moment her wingtips started tingling, Latias shot skyward and formed a bubble of force around herself. The predicted bolt slammed into it, bouncing off to the west. As soon as it hit, Latias arced it northward, seeing how far she could nudge it off course. Through the extreme tinting of her bubble, she saw the bright streak curve almost thirty degrees. Not a new record, but not bad considering her low altitude.

Between strikes, she was left with much time to contemplate. When thunder had first roused her, she wondered what purpose she served if this house's new occupant despised her. Besides sheer sentimentality, she watched over this house to fulfill Clayton's request to befriend its next tenant. Failing that, she had little reason to remain.

In the thick of the storm now, however, she knew even if she returned to the lighthouse on the opposite side of the island, she'd still do exactly this. The location mattered not; here as good as anywhere. Thunderstorms provided the bulk of her entertainment since Clayton's passing. She wasn't going to miss one because a setback earlier in the day.

Her improved mood brought with it hope. Not all was lost below. She would give Michael time to cool off, maybe even forget. She'll find another way to approach him eventually, and after ten years a handful of days felt like nothing. For now, however, she maintained invisibility in case Michael awoke and spotted her. She can't protect the house if she got stuffed inside a pokéball.

Lightning once more lashed out, striking the piling at the end of the nearer breakwater in the harbor. A smile accompanied the thunder's arrival. No matter what happened to her, she always had the storms, a gift Clayton gave to her long ago that never lost its luster.

Her wingtips tingled again, and once more she climbed into the dark sky.

* * *

Protecting the house through a storm always demanded a lot of energy, the closest Latias had ever come to what she understood as a hangover. She slept through her morning routine, customary the mornings following such exertions. The day after a storm provided bountiful fishing, and she always partook, albeit around midday.

The depths rewarded her with her third catch that hour, some species of small bass. It struggled in her invisible jaws as she caught her breath after surfacing, but she stopped that quickly with a powerful crunch. Flipping over and flattening her wings into a single plane, she floated on her back while she made short work of the meal.

As close as she was to the island, she could easily make out across the water when a voice started calling out. "Hey! Heeey!" She quickly flipped back into her belly, dunking her face in the water to rinse it, and took off towards the sound. It wouldn't be the first time she's had to rescue swimmers in over their heads.

As she got closer she realized she had been mistaken. Michael was by the tree at the base of the driveway, calling her by the letter she left him before, "Aaayyy!" His two Ninetales nosed around the area, the ice-type proving the more adventurous of the two as it made its way down the side of the bluffs to the shore.

Her heart skipped a beat and last night's hope resurfaced. If he was searching her out, she should answer; it might allow her to salvage the fiasco from the previous day. Risks and dangerous scenarios danced at the edge of her mind, warning her to keep her guard up. Nevertheless, she was determined to take the opportunity, to try and set things right.

Landing on the other side of the tree from the group, she drew herself low to the ground, and quickly arranged her down to display her human illusion in a crouch. Satisfied with her quick work, she walked out from behind the tree slowly, as to not alarm the three.

The fire-type Ninetales responded immediately to her presence, turning to face her and issuing a couple short barks. Michael turned to see what the Ninetales had found, and smiled when he saw her approach. She felt no hostility from him, instead discovering a wave of relief. It relieved her in turn, and the illusion of her human form relaxed as she did.

"I wanted to apologize for yesterday," he spoke as he slowly approached her. "I brought this for you. Maybe it'll help." He held out to her a small whiteboard with a black marker. She gingerly accepted it from him and detached the marker, trying to figure out how to hold it in her hand. Its greater bulk allowed her to hold it in a reasonable approximation of the way humans held writing utensils, and she made sure the illusion mirrored the gesture as she secured the cap on its rear end.

His relief remained, along with traces of amusement. The risk to her now was probably as minimal as she could hope for. She sat in the grass, placing the whiteboard on the ground before her. She subtly manipulated its blades with telekinetic nudges, to give her illusion's legs an appearance of weight.

With the same broad strokes and careful curves she used the night before, she slowly wrote out the word 'SORRY', and held the board up for him to read.

He laughed in response, the first time she had heard him do so. It was clear like his speaking voice, but much stronger. "No, I told you I was the one who should apologize. Yesterday was… strange. I didn't expect anything like that. It was a shock."

The ice-type Ninetales had returned to the group by then, and trotted over to investigate her. She stopped erasing the previous word she wrote and floated backwards out of its reach, manipulating the illusion to appear as if it was scrambling back. Michael made a clicking noise and it stopped, before turning around and returning to him. Latias slowly drifted back towards where the whiteboard lay and finished cleaning it as he brought his two foxes to either side of him.

"That's some of what I wanted to apologize about. This is Sparkles, and over here is Flufftail," he said, indicating first the blue and then the orange Ninetales. "Don't ask me about the names, I didn't pick them." A smile crossed his face but quickly faded, and a pang of sorrow entered his mostly positive emotional mix.

Holding the whiteboard up in one hand, displaying the word 'HI', Latias waved with the other and smiled at the two. Sparkles lifted a paw in a rough facsimile of a wave of its own, while Flufftail just leaned on its trainer.

"He's very well trained, and he's never attacked a human before," Michael said, looking down at Flufftail and scratching him behind an ear. He looked back up to Latias wearing a gentle smile, but Latias could feel that he became slightly withdrawn into a guarded emotional stance. "You're not human, though, are you?"

Latias froze for a moment, before holding the whiteboard vertically and carefully drawing a large question mark.

"The strip of paper you gave me yesterday, it had my former company's logo on it. I must have left it on my desk the night before last. I thought I had thrown it out when it was gone the next morning, but you took it, didn't you?" When Latias didn't respond, he continued. "Which means your vanishing act yesterday was the second time you gave these noses the slip." He rubbed the backs of both Ninetales in emphasis. "They were trained as guard pokémon, there's no way a person could have gotten as close as you must have and just slipped away."

Michael looked past her towards the house, "Then, I think but I'm not sure, I saw some of your impressive handiwork last night. Let me tell you, you might have a way to stop a lightning strike, but you weren't able to stop the sound. It only takes seeing one or two bolts streaking a couple meters overhead almost horizontally before you realize something fishy is going on."

Latias blinked several times and tried to think of a response, but only managed a shrug. She had never given any thought to how obvious her efforts might look to someone watching from up close; nobody ever approached anywhere near the house during inclement weather, and when she lived at the top of the lighthouse she rarely had to intervene on its behalf, engaging the skies over open ocean. She felt silly that she had believed being invisible would be enough last night.

"So what are you?" His tone was a lot softer than when he asked yesterday. "Some sort of benevolent spirit? Guardian entity? A ghost?"

Latias shrugged again, and wrote on the board, 'I GUESS'. On the most basic level, he was right.

"I can't say I haven't heard stranger stories, my psychic aunt was always going on about spirits..." There was a pause as he digested this before looking back up at her. "You know, you look really cute for a dead girl." The quip earned Michael a remarkably hard shove from Flufftail, forcing him to catch himself with an outstretched hand to the side before he fell over.

"So where do you stay?" Michael looked around. "This tree?" When Latias shook her head no, he looked to the house. "In there?" Latias shook her head again and this time pointed downward. Michael gave her a strange look she couldn't quite process. "Oh. Can you show me?" Latias vigorously shook her head no. That was definitely a step that should wait until later.

Softer this time, "Is it lonely?"

Latias quickly looked to the ground before nodding. She held up the whiteboard again, 'VERY'.

"Well, maybe we can be lonely together, then."

At the comment, Flufftail let out a loud whine. Sparkles responded with a loud snort from behind the tree, which it had been valiantly attempting to climb. Michael chuckled at the display as he stood up, "she's easily distractible. Let's leave her to her thing and go inside. I'd say I'll show you around, but maybe I should be asking you for a tour. I have a couple questions about the place."

Latias smiled and elevated her body, willing the illusion to stand. She let Michael take the lead, and Flufftail slipped by her to take his side. She followed behind at a short distance until they got to the porch, where he waved her inside first. She shook her head no, to which he simply shrugged and went in himself. Making sure she cleared the tails of his pokémon, so they wouldn't cut through her illusion's legs, she followed behind him.

The furniture had not been moved, and boxes sat piled in corners, but the dust in the living room area inside the door had been removed and the place already felt a little like a home again. As his fox made its way into the kitchen, Michael stood in the middle of the living room with his hands on his hips and turned to face her. "So, what happened to all the cushions?"

Blushing, Latias put the whiteboard on a table and wrote, 'I TOOK'. This drew another laugh from him, laughter Latias was beginning to enjoy. It had been quite some time since she made anyone laugh, and she found the cheer infectious.

"I hope you won't mind if I replace them then, little good they'll do me like this." Latias nodded her assent as he moved over to a recliner "I don't know what to do about this though," he said, reaching out to touch it.

A strangled note of alarm sounded from Latias' throat. She looked at him with wide eyes, like she just broke some priceless antique. He looked at her with eyes almost as big. "Wow. I thought you couldn't make any sound. What's wrong with this thing to draw that sort of reaction from you?"

Memories temporarily overpowered her awareness. Clayton's struggles and her sense of helplessness. Her body atop his, their heads touching. Her attempts to order and soothe his mind as his body failed before rescue could come. A mind she'd known and touched and so much more slipping away from her forever.

Michael's sudden approach snapped her back to the present, and she hastily backed away from him. "What is it to you?" he asked.

Hastily scribbling on the whiteboard, Latias held up a sloppily-written 'DEATH'.

Michael scratched his chin in thought before pointing at her, unable to voice his question.

Latias shook her head negative as she erased the word, writing in its place, 'FRIEND'.

"Ah, the last owner I'm guessing. I'll get rid of it if you want."

Latias nodded absentmindedly. This room never failed to push her away, just standing in it weighed her down. She pointed upwards, then moved towards the stairs, hoping he understood her meaning.

Ascending them briskly and moving through the door to the left at the top placed her into a wide room. It had been designated as her room, before Clayton's death, before she left the house and took up residence in the cavern underneath the basement. Despite this it had always been empty; she always had a place in Clayton's bedroom for herself. It was filled with boxes now, strange logos she didn't recognize on their faces. Mysterious mechanical parts sat between pieces of disconnected electronics in the corner near the closet.

She heard Michael's approach, quickly taking the steps two at a time, muttering about how he was definitely removing that recliner. He came through the door slightly winded, and looked around as he gathered his breath.

"I was going to turn this room into something of a workshop," he started hesitantly. "But the house needs a lot of fixing before I can afford time to work on this stuff."

'CAN HELP'

Michael looked at her and smiled. "I'd definitely appreciate it, if you wouldn't mind."

Latias nodded vigorously. She had always hoped to see the house restored to its original state, and she'd love to be part of the process.

"And down here," Michael said, walking to the other end of the hallway, "Is the bedroom." He looked back and gave Latias a look she couldn't quite decipher. "But you already knew that, judging by an absent mattress." She did her best to look apologetic.

Though he took the right-hand door into the bedroom, Latias went left, into the study. The four pictures were still piled in the corner, just off the corner of the rug. She gathered them up quickly, to spare herself the awkwardness of visually compensating for the differing arm lengths between her and the human illusion she wore.

Just as she managed to get them settled in her arms, Michael appeared in the door behind her. With a sheepish grin, she spun around and lifted them slightly to indicate her purpose. Michael just looked confused. "I have no idea what you'd do with them, but take them I guess. I was just going to put them in the attic." The human illusion executed a little jump as Latias bobbed in the air in joy.

A new picture on the wall drew her attention. After she placed her bundle outside the door to the balcony, she walked over to examine it. The same woman from the picture on his desk sat on the white aft deck of his boat, looking out to sea. Latias pointed to it and gave Michael a quizzical look.

He stepped up to it, but for a moment didn't say anything. Then, haltingly, "That's my wife."

Shifting her load to free a hand, Latias pointed at the floor and cocked her head.

"No, she won't be coming here," he replied, looking down at the floor. "Just me and the Ninetales."

'SORRY', Latias wrote after picking up the whiteboard once more. She managed it noticeably faster than the first time she had wrote the word; the practice was doing her good.

"Don't worry about it," he responded, showing a smile Latias could perceive he didn't feel. "I don't know your story. For all I know it's worse."

'LATER'. Then, quickly erasing and writing again, 'THANKS'

"Wait, where are you going?"

'HOME'

"Er, fine. Will you be coming back sometime?"

'TOMORROW' she wrote, the long word taking up the board diagonally from corner to corner.

She placed the whiteboard on top of the stack of pictures returned to her arms. Taking a moment to look out to the flashing beacon of Palatine Light in the waters to the north, she hovered over the railing of the balcony, shaping her illusion to look like it was climbing up it and turning around. Both she and the illusion smiled, then dropped off the edge to the ground below.

She stopped just above the ground, the illusion assuming a crouch. She didn't bother manipulating the grass to show an impact; she hoped the motion had been fast enough he didn't have time to see. She turned and flew off the north face of the bluffs, looking as if the illusion had ran and jumped into the sea. Assuming full invisibility, she hugged the base of the bluffs as she darted around back to her cave.

All in all, she felt the day turned out well, especially compared to yesterday's disaster. She hummed to herself as she stood the pictures leaning against the table in her cave, two on either side. Michael seemed like a good person, with ambition. She found herself wondering about his life, the strange equipment in the room, and what happened to his family. The answers could wait for another time, however, and soon Latias found herself preoccupied with when she should reveal herself to him. She was actually eager for it now, but felt it prudent to wait just a little longer to get to know him. Not too long, maybe just a week.

It was a strange feeling, having something concrete to look forward to.


	3. Once More Unto The Breach

For the first time in a long while, Latias was experiencing the town at ground level. Michael wished to see the generous old lady who had visited a couple days prior, and wanted to take Latias to meet her. Latias saw no reason to decline, provided they didn't go into much detail about her; years before she had walked the town with Clayton somewhat regularly. They had reached the town by his small inflatable boat, a new experience Latias found that she enjoyed. In the heart of town, with the noontime throng of people, Latias was enjoying herself a little less. The past few days convinced her that her disguise still worked well, but she still found herself occasionally wishing she could just become invisible and fly above it all. The oppressive noise of human commotion bombarded her from all quarters. In a strange way, though, Latias had missed the experience.

Though she expected to have to show him around, Michael had taken the lead from the beginning and guided them through the busy streets of town, consulting some handheld device. They quickly left the main streets, walking down the quieter backroads to their destination near the edge of the main part of town. People could be seen with their pokémon here, walking side-by-side down the sidewalks or playing in parks or yards. Latias found it strange Michael decided to keep his pokémon home; every other trainer she had come across kept their pokémon in pokéballs with them as they traveled, and on the island away from the main town it was a common sight to see trainer-owned pokémon everywhere. Some people even said it was a necessity, with how much of the island was still populated by wild pokémon that sometimes roamed into sparsely-populated areas.

The 'café on Tide Street' that was their destination turned out to be the simply named Tide Street Café, a small affair that occupied the bottom floor of a building that appeared to have been at one point simply a large house. Its sparse tables were packed with the lunchtime throng, and a lone woman about Michael's age staffed the counter.

"I was told to ask for Nola, about the house on the northeast end?" Michael asked her after they approached the counter.

The woman's eyes flicked between him and Latias' human disguise. "She told me you'd be showing up. Follow me, please."

She brought the two around to a door set into the back wall, which opened to reveal a narrow staircase to the second floor. As the two humans ascended before her, Latias wondered why they had to make some of their hallways so cramped. She bright her wings all the way up to make as narrow a profile as she maneuvered up the stairs behind them. They were shown to a library where they found Nola sitting behind a desk. The younger woman quickly excused herself and went back downstairs, leaving the three alone.

"I knew you'd stop by," Nola said, standing from behind the desk and walking around it to greet them. "No need for introductions, I already know your name. And look who you've brought! There's a face I haven't seen in a long time, and it hasn't aged a bit." Nola stepped close to Latias and looked her illusion over, while Latias kept herself from flinching as best she could. She hadn't expected anyone to recognize her after all this time.

Michael put voice to similar thoughts, "you two know each other? She's the one who'd been living there before I showed up."

"Has to do with the house you're in, actually. Figures she's the one." Nola waved them to a couple chairs side-by-side before a curtained window, and took a seat of her own across a coffee table from them. The pair obliged as Nola reached over her shoulder and slipped a book out from a shelf behind her. "Clayton Georges, the man who we knew lived there last – he's been gone about ten years now – was often seen with her walking around town. He always said she was a great-niece of his, but wouldn't you know, when we looked for next-of-kin after he died, we found neither his niece nor nephew ever had kids!" She squinted at Latias then, "so, just what are you?" Michael looked at Latias, who manipulated her illusion to make a slashing motion with her hand across her throat at him, a gesture she was taught to mean 'stop'. Nola laughed at this, "A decade dead and he's still keeping secrets from us."

"So how'd he die?" Michael asked

Nola looked to Latias, who just looked down at the floor. "Sorry dear," then looking back to Michael, "He had some troubles with a stroke, and as he was recovering from that a seizure did him in. They said it stopped his breathing somehow. It was a tragic loss for the whole town. He'd lived here for most of his long life, and was quite the handyman; he would always be willing to help people out with anything they needed." She placed the book she retrieved from the shelf on the table before her, but didn't yet open it. "He was the previous keeper of Manisees Lighthouse, at the northwest end of the island. After he retired he built a house at the other end, where Palatine Light used to stand. The house you now own." She opened the book now, and started flipping through it. The title page read 'HISTORY AND WRECKS OF PALATINE POINT'.

There was a silence while Nola continued searching her book and Michael absorbed this information. The short summary of the man's life held so many memories for Latias, those few sentences glossing over several decades of her memories; half of his life and the clear majority of her own.

"How about her?" Michael gestured towards Latias, who looked back and forth between the two frantically. She had been hoping she'd be able to stay sidelined for this discussion.

"I only know as much as you told me and what I've already said. Mr. Georges was a vibrant part of the community, and often in his later years he could be seen in her company. He always said she was his mute great-niece, named Anne. When he died, we couldn't find any records she ever existed, and she wasn't mentioned by name in his will. His will did say, however, that his house wasn't to be sold until five years after his death, and was to be left exactly as-is until then. Said it was to be occupied by someone unnamed, that 'they know who they are'." She looked to Latias, "Now I know too."

Latias was overwhelmed by emotions, shock at the forefront. It made sense that she never knew about the will; Clayton had been cagey about his mortality after the stroke, and managed to keep much from her even through their psychic link. She never expected him to leave her the house even temporarily – he was usually more practical-minded than that – and the few times she managed to coax it out of him, he had told her he wanted the house to see new owners after him.

Nola caught the emotions that played across the face of Latias' human image, and changed the subject. "So what about you, Michael, what's your story? Anything for me to write about in my book?"

"Nah, I'm nothing special. I worked on pokémon storage networks and Pokémon Center systems, anything computerized dealing with pokémon I could help with. It made good money, but after a family tragedy I quit. Just had to get away, you know?" His tone was much lighter than the emotions Latias saw within him. She figured he must mean his wife, the one in the pictures around his house.

"Are you a trainer yourself?"

"Not really. I have a couple Ninetales, but they just watch the house, I don't battle with them. Was never really my thing." A surge of relief swept through Latias; if Michael wasn't truly a trainer, she had less to fear of capture. Her mind briefly turned to thinking of when she could reveal her true nature to him, with this worry lifted.

"You know," Nola smiled, "Everyone keeps getting fed up when the Pokémon Center on the island loses connection to the mainland's networks during storms, since we have to rely on satellite communications. Think you could set up something local for us? I bet the town would be willing to throw a nice chunk of change at you for it."

"Well, I don't have a lot of equipment on hand right now," Michael was speaking in the slow and steady tone Latias was learning meant he was trying to think something through even as he said it, "but if I could get my hands on everything I'd need, I'd see what I could do." A determined look came across his face, and Latias felt his emotional makeup take a more positive tint. "Actually, I might have enough to get started at least."

"Oh, that would be wonderful. If you could do that for us I think I might just have to see about adding another chapter."

Michael, watching as Nola leafed through the book, broke the silence. "You wrote the history of that area? You said a lighthouse was there before, can you tell me about it?"

Stopping on a specific page, Nola switched to a tone of speech that reminded Latias of a tour guide. "Palatine Light stood there for around a hundred years, originally built to warn sailors away from the reefs and shoals that extended northward from Palatine Point. These features were quite expansive though, and many inexperienced sailors still ran afoul them. When Palatine Light was damaged in a storm, they made the decision to not repair it, instead mounting a navigation beacon on steel pilings driven into the shoal itself several hundred meters north of the island. This beacon is now called Palatine Light itself." She pointed to a black and white picture on the page, depicting the lighthouse in question. "If you're interested in diving, three of the wrecks are in shallow enough water to visit. A fourth, if you're experienced."

Latias had been down to one of them herself, but she didn't have the underwater endurance to explore it, and was worried if she went inside she'd be too disoriented to return when she ran out of breath. By Michael's expression and shrug, it seemed he had similar reservations about diving on the wrecks, or at least too distracted to give it much thought.

"Ah, I can already see your mind is working on our situation. I'll let you go then, you already showed me what I wanted to know! You can take the book with you, as long as you bring it back soon." Michael smiled an apology as he stood, and took the book under one arm. Latias followed behind him as he made his way towards the door, which Nola opened. "Do keep me updated on your little project, if you decide to help us. I'll see about getting you some resources."

After saying thanks and goodbye, the two made their way back down the narrow stairs and onwards out of the café. They apparently caught the woman at the register's attention; she wished them a nice day as they left.

On the trip back to the dock they had tied up their inflatable, Latias could tell Michael was already deep in the storage problem. His emotional makeup told her that he enjoyed trying to solve these problems, and the task pushed to the side anything else that might have been weighing on him. He listened to the device feeding him directions absentmindedly, and Latias hung back several times as he almost made wrong turns, thankfully none of them dangerous.

She found his inflatable boat surprisingly comfortable; the section between the front of the U-shaped air tube that made its hull and the rigid front of the control station had a padded floor and was just the right size for her body to fit, with only her wings protruding to both sides and her neck over the front. As they traveled across the protected waters of the bay back to the house, she felt the emotions associated with his problem-solving waver several times. During a few of these moments she caught him staring at her illusion, which she displayed kneeling and leaning over the front. She didn't think much of it; there was not much else to look at but the smooth waters they glided over on plane.

Several hours later, Latias was trying to make sense of his machines. They had unpacked several of the boxes in the long empty room on the second floor, Latias helping where she could but eventually falling to the wayside. A framework now stood in the middle of the back corner in front of a window, different slots on the rack occupied by what she assumed to be computer systems. They were wired to a display that sat on the carpet in the other corner of the room's rear. White text scrolled across its otherwise dark screen.

"This is a prototype of a system I developed for Pokémon Centers to keep track of the different pokémon they had on-site. I ended up using it in my previous home to track the Ninetales, but I don't keep two hundred pokémon. There's plenty of room here to get a storage system at least started," Michael explained to her. Latias hovered close to him, her human illusion leaning over his shoulder to observe. Sparkles and Flufftail sat at the other end of the room, batting around a discarded piece of hardware near one of the metal posts that were placed in each corner of the room. He made a satisfied sound as the text stopped scrolling, and with a flourish made a keystroke on the half-assembled control panel on the floor in front of him.

[DETECTED (4) AREA SCANNERS: SOCKETS 3, 4, 6, 7]

[COMMUNICATING]

[TWO RECORDS RETRIEVED FROM MEMORY]

[ENTITY LIST PREPARED]

Michael hit the same key again, without the flourish. His eyes were glued to the screen now, and Latias felt an overpowering sense of anticipation from him, pushing aside all his other emotions.

1\. [ID 7D6CCF98FDBED6EB. SPECIES: NINETALES 'FLUFFTAIL']

[MAJOR MEDICAL HISTORY: SEE FILE. SPECIAL NOTES: RESCUE CASE #H3145]

2\. [ID: 525644AEAA4DC7B9. SPECIES: NINETALES 'SPARKLES']

[MAJOR MEDICAL HISTORY: NONE. SPECIAL NOTES: ALOLAN SUBSPECIES]

3\. [ID: (UNASSIGNED). SPECIES: (ERROR 36) ' ']

[MAJOR MEDICAL HISTORY: (NO RECORD FOUND). SPECIAL NOTES: (NO RECORD FOUND)]

[ERRORS FOUND: CHECK DATABASE CONNECTION]

[UNREGISTERED POKEMON DETECTED: ALERT SUPERVISOR AND SYSADMIN]

Latias' heart sank as she tried to decipher the messages. She wasn't sure what exactly they meant, but she knew that there were three entries, when Michael would expect two. His anticipation, however, was immediately replaced by a vast measure of satisfaction, rather than confusion. She had been discovered, and he had already been onto it. She backed away from Michael quickly, but willed herself to remain in the room. Just earlier today she had decided it would be safe to tell him about her true form; she wasn't going to flee just because she didn't pick the means. A hand on the doorknob was still very reassuring.

Michael turned in his sitting position on the floor. He only wore a slight smile, but Latias could read far more into his emotional nature; he was exceptionally pleased with himself. His tone carried none of this, instead sounding very encouraging, even concerned. Even as he started to speak Latias could feel some of that concern bleeding through his emotions, and it heartened her.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you or something. I already had my suspicions from the boat trip back; the way it handled and the way the ropes along the sides behaved. Why don't we take a little break from this for now and get to know each other?"

* * *

Simply choosing a location to talk required a negotiation. Latias wanted it to take place outside where she could leave if it became uncomfortable. Michael wanted to see her true self, and so thought it best to do so indoors. They settled on the balcony running across the back of the second floor, where Michael sat near the door to the study after retrieving an item, and Latias landed herself under the bathroom window. The hum of the cooling unit stuck through the window behind her unnerved her a bit, another layer of mental noise currently running through her mind.

Michael sighed, and Latias wondered if he had to order his thoughts like she did. The shock and awe of seeing her real form for the first time was still settling to the bottom of his emotional signature when he spoke. "Alright, first thing's first. Your species is rare enough that I haven't seen it at any of the pokémon centers I've worked in. Do you have any other way to communicate?"

'CONNECT,' Latias pointed to her head with one claw as she held the whiteboard up in the other.

"Mentally? So you're a psychic type. That would make this more convenient, if you wouldn't mind. Don't be worried for my sake; I know whatever happened to the previous owner of this place wasn't your fault."

The thought that she somehow caused Clayton's death had never crossed her mind, though she knew some form of brain problem was responsible. She had done everything she could to fix it as it happened and failed, as far as she knew whatever damage occurred was far beyond her capacity to create. Despite Michael specifically saying he knew she wasn't to blame, the thought still offended her. She looked out to Palatine Light to the north in the distance, its rhythmic flashing calming her. Blink, five-count, blink, five-count, blink.

Enough time passed with her in Michael's company the past few days that she believed a link could indeed be established. She had a good feel for his psychic signature, but physical contact always helped. 'STILL', she wrote on the board and showed, before placing it beside herself and floating towards him. Though he complied, and despite his reassurances, she noticed his breathing quicken. She tried to ignore it as she touched her forehead to his and closed her eyes.

Every creature, whether human or pokémon or base animal, had a built-in resistance to intrusion by other minds, but those with more intelligence had greater and more complex ones. She probed the barrier surrounding Michael's, prodding and feeling for a good entry point. After applying enough pressure to create a deformity, she backed off on the power she applied against it, remembering how Clayton complained about a terrible headache when she forged that earlier connection. Instead of crashing through, a small hole in Michael's mind simply opened before her, and she pushed herself slowly through it to form a mental bridge. When she opened her eyes and drifted backwards, she saw he was staring at her with a curious expression, hunched over. She hoped she didn't cause some sort of adverse reaction with the intrusion.

 _"Hello?"_ she mentally spoke through the newly-formed channel.

Michael jerked up out of his slouch, looking all around him, but didn't immediately respond. She could sense from his emotions that he was confused, but the undercurrent of alarm wasn't as strong as she had feared. A good start to their connection. She wasn't sure why he didn't say anything until she detected an undercurrent of mental noise, with little clips and fragments of sounds filtering through the channel. _"Speak aloud,"_ she suggested.

"Oh. That's not as convenient as I was thinking. Still, I like your voice. Even if it seems to come from," he waved around vaguely before he found his tongue once more, "Everywhere"

 _"Convenience with time."_

"What about you? I thought with something like this would let you speak in more than clipped phrases."

Latias shook her head. _"Not yet. Can later. Gradual."_

"Definitely not as convenient. I was hoping we could carry a normal conversation." He sat back and closed his eyes, and Latias felt his emotions re-ordering themselves after the shock of the new experience. "You can't hurry the process?"

 _"Mind must adjust."_

"Mine or yours?"

 _"Both."_

He remained silent for a moment, and Latias tried to think how to explain the process to him. Trying to teach a non-psychic these details quickly was like trying to pick up a radio signal with no power going to the receiver.

"Would I eventually be able to talk to you in your head?" Michael finally spoke once more.

 _"Already are. One creates other."_

"I mean without looking like I'm talking to myself out loud."

 _"Soon,"_ she sent back. She wanted to tell him how, but she couldn't find the word 'subvocalization' in his vocabulary, so she couldn't use it in her telepathy to him. The inability to use words someone didn't already know annoyed her, and using a new bond meant explaining the concept to him would quickly tire her out with psychic exertion. The matter would have to wait until the channel stabilized.

"This will have to do for now. Let's get down to it, then. Do you have a name? Besides 'A'?"

 _"Never given one."_ An interesting paradox; she realized she couldn't tell him her species name because he didn't already know it. Instead she picked up the whiteboard once more and wrote, 'LATIAS.' She could hear him mentally sound it out, and relished that he pronounced it correctly on the first try.

"What did the 'A' mean then?"

 _"Illusion name. Anne,"_ she sent.

Though he fell silent again, Latias could feel his emotions shifting into concern and caution. From this she guessed the subject of his next question before he even asked it. "The man who lived here last, was he your trainer?"

She shook her head. _"Father. Brother. Friend."_ A pause. _"I loved him every way one can love another."_ The final sentence drained her, and she had to catch herself to still her slowly spinning head. That message she wished relayed as clearly as possible.

With a furrowed brow, "Don't hurt yourself." Then after a pause, "Physically?"

She blinked as her head cleared. She had forgotten how important that element was to human relationships. She shook her head negative, though that answer was only mostly correct; the nuance required too much effort to explain.

"I already heard how he died, so I'm not going to put you through that. The chair's gone, by the way." At these words her head snapped up, and she saw he wore a gentle smile, reassurance dominating his emotional makeup. "I'm not sure if you remember – you got real worked up about it – but you said I could get rid of it, and it didn't feel right keeping something around that made you uncomfortable I wasn't planning on using anyway. Fluff burned it this morning before you showed up."

A strange mixture of relief and regret coursed through her. Her memories of that room, and that piece of furniture in particular, were the biggest reason she stayed below the house rather than within it, and only accessed it through the second floor. _"Thanks,"_ she eventually sent him. A wave of relief and compassion spread from him in response.

The mention of the Ninetales by name reminded her how strange the names sounded. Usually humans named their pokémon after other human names, or concepts, or something the pokémon embodied or represented. Michael's two Ninetales' names seemed downright irreverent in comparison. _"Ninetales names? Seem silly."_

Michael laughed at this, "I didn't name them. We got them for our kids, as protectors and playmates, and we let them pick the names. I guess that's what you can expect from five-year-olds." By the time he finished speaking, Latias felt his emotions darken considerably.

Their bond's youth meant she didn't have a lot of control over her tone, but she tried her best to say as gently as possible, _"What happened?"_

The object he fetched before they began sat on the other side of the study door. He reached in and grabbed it now, revealing a folder full of papers. "My wife was driving the kids back from a concert one night. They were run off the highway. Cops said they thought it might have been a drunk driver, but they never found who did it." By the time he had fished what he was looking for out of the folder, the pressure of negative emotions he broadcast were so heavy, felt so oppressive, that when he slid the photograph across the balcony she jumped back in alarm. Cracks of confusion shot through the icy mass of his grief and anger.

 _"Can feel emotions,"_ Latias tried to send, but from her nerves flubbed the first word, giving it a stutter as she caught and corrected it.

Michael buried his face in his hands. "Sorry. I try to hold it together when I talk about it, but sometimes it's too hard. Four years isn't enough time. I'm not sure if there's such a thing as enough time."

Latias was familiar with the emotions he felt, as they had been her own for a long time. Feeling them from someone else was a unique experience still. She looked down at the picture of the photograph. The vehicle depicted was hardly recognizable as a form of transportation. The car looked to her more like a crumpled ball of metal some giant discarded in a fit of rage.

As she handed the photograph back slowly, he looked up. His eyes were wet, but if he had shed tears he left no evidence. "You're a little further along than me, eh? Does it get better?"

Instead of drifting back to her original spot, she settled down right in front of him. Most days she handled it well now, but every so often it would still hit her hard. _"A little. Slowly."_

"Maybe we can be miserable together for a little while, then."

Something about the line struck Latias as funny, and she let out an amused snort. Maybe it was the awkward, hopeful lightheartedness that skated across the top of his emotions, that mere intent was enough to make it humorous. Apparently he understood her gesture for what it was, as she felt his amusement spread and take root, breaking up his despondence. The littlest sparks could create mutual joy that slowly thawed their frozen hearts.

Eventually she nodded her acquiescence, but added a condition; _"Do not capture"_

"Don't worry about that. I told Nola I wasn't a trainer, and I meant it. I almost didn't keep the Ninetales but," he looked down to where the front door was relative to them, where the two Ninetales kept guard on the porch to alert them if anyone approached. "Sometimes you can't escape the memories no matter how much you want to, and sometimes you'll take every reminder you can get."

 _"They okay?"_

"I don't really know. They spend more time reassuring me than I do them, but it's still a two-way street. I don't understand them nearly as well as they understand me. I evolved them after the fact, on some harebrained assumption it might help them get over it, but I can't ever be sure that worked as intended." He leaned back and rested on his hands, and Latias drifted a little closer to prevent any more space opening up between them. "Fluff definitely took it hard; he loved my daughter, my eldest, more than food or sleep. Even after I evolved him, he wouldn't leave my side for months. Spark used to be a handful, and though she kept her independent streak she really mellowed out after."

The sun had set around the time they started talking, and dusk itself was disappearing from the skies. In the building darkness Latias wasn't able to see any of the folder's other contents as he replaced the picture back inside it. Despite her desire to continue talking to him, she couldn't think of anything to say; she wanted to leave this topic behind before either of them grew any more depressed.

Instead, Michael took the opportunity, as he stood up. "You know, I meant it when I said I'd like us to stick together. It feels wrong of me to kick you out of here after your history of the place. You may not be my pokémon, but I think you might make a nice roommate. Besides, you offered to help fix the place up, I have to repay you somehow."

The offer enticed her. The house didn't seem dead anymore with him around. Flufftail had removed that terrible reminder from the first floor. Now that her guard duties were shared with two other pokémon – and canids were likely better at the task than she – she didn't have to remain in a spot where she could hear approaching vehicles. Her thoughts must have been plain enough on her features that even a human could read her expression, because by the time she looked up at Michael again and nodded, he wore a grin.

First, she'd need to get some bedding. _"Must retrieve. Please wait!"_

"Wait! Is there any way we can speak wherever you're going?"

 _"Just talk, I hear. However far."_

The grin left his face at her answer. "That's a little… inconvenient. Will I have privacy?"

 _"Connection improves, I'll teach."_ She navigated the contraction with ease, despite the telepathic complexity the formations strangely held. The emotional weight of the conversation was already helping her improve their new connection.

Though she felt he was still a little unsure about the idea, his relief at her response was her cue to depart. She zipped over the balcony railing and raced along the ground below. Speaking once more felt wonderful, even if she was temporarily limited until the channel settled and expanded. Michael's voice entered her head once more, now hollow and echoing now that she wasn't hearing him in-person. That too would improve in time. Her care to transmit her own voice as clearly as possible, to not unsettle him as Clayton was at first, was one of the reasons she had to keep her messages short for now.

" _What else can this connection do?"_

 _"Text. Pictures. Sensations. Dreams. Maybe more. I Need practice,"_ she replied. She felt momentarily amused that the non-psychic of the pair was able to speak easier than the psychic.

 _"What about emotions? You said you could read those too"_

 _"Innate sense. Like touch or taste."_

 _"Huh. Which of those other features is easiest? We could try it first, work our way up from there."_

Latias entered her cave while she pondered the query. She then sent the world 'HELLO'. Indecipherable noise filled the channel in return, what she thought might be a short burst of mingled, mangled curses. Concerned, she hovered in place until he finally responded. _"Whatever you just did, please don't do it again."_

 _"Dreams easiest then. Least interference. Already suggestible."_

 _"Sounds interesting, but warn me beforehand until you spring it on me like that."_

Latias tried transmitting a short laugh through the connection, building on its similarity to speech as a vocal affair.

 _"That was nice, though,"_ Latias received from him, and she puffed with pride as she gathered a few choice cushions from her pile and exited her cave. _"Where do you live, anyway?"_

 _"Under house. In a cavern."_ She waited to respond until after she zipped around the base of the bluffs and dropped her payload on the balcony outside the study door, just in case he was watching for where she arrived from.

 _"That sounds awful._ Oh, you're back." Michael's voice drifted from his bedroom to Latias' ears, and her mind adjusted the hollow echo of his mental speech to the clearer tones of his vocal speech as he walked over to let her in. Then, as she dragged the pile into the study, "I wasn't planning on sleeping yet, we still haven't eaten dinner."

Despite keeping her messages short and broken, arranging so many of them and keeping her voice appealing through the new channel still exhausted her. _"Talking is tiring for now. Just a nap."_

"Suit yourself. If I'm out before you're up, the Ninetales eat pretty generic pokémon feed, I'm sure it won't kill you at least."

 _"I feed myself. I rest myself."_ She constructed the messages to sound annoyed as she drew herself vertically half a meter off the floor, putting her eyes at the level of his. _"Neither invalid nor yours."_

Incomprehensible noise filtered back in varying intensities as she felt him trying to piece together what to say, only annoying her further. A third party emerged in the war between confusion and concern in his mind, an irritation to match her own. The irritation secured his faculties first. "Fine." He backed out through the door and turned down the hallway.

Latias wondered if she misinterpreted his confusion. Perhaps it stemmed not from a perceived ownership or lack of capability against her response, but his intent versus her meaning. Ungratefulness was the last feeling she wished to convey. _"Wait!"_ She followed him and caught him by the shoulders just before he started down the stairs. _"Sorry, I-"_

"Can I send images to you?" He interrupted her. "We had a little trouble with that before, but it might make this easier."

The request took her off-guard. _"Taking is easy. Sending is hard. Visualize."_

Sitting on the top step, Michael proved much more adept at using his mind's eye than his mind's voice, though with their narrow connection Latias still bore the brunt of the work to retrieve them. A series of scenes flashed by, and she could pick up hints of emotion connected to each. Even images of his pokémon carried no signature of possessiveness like other trainers, and the message the impromptu slideshow depicted for her was a different one still. They illustrated the concern he had for family, that worry that rests in the back of the head even when everything is alright. A sense of detachment indicated he didn't feel she was family yet, but his meaning showed.

Returning to reality, she felt much heavier, and found she had lost most of her altitude. Michael had his arms on either side of her body, over her shoulders, steadying her. "That looked like it took a lot out of you. I'm allowed to be worried when I can see that so plainly, aren't I? Not concern for a pokémon, concern for a friend."

Latias nodded slowly, and he flashed her a warm smile in return. "Good. Please get some rest. Where are you thinking of staying?"

Despite her desire to trust him, the balcony door still presented a tempting escape route. _"Study is fine."_

"I'll try to keep the noise down." He stood and descended the stairs, leaving her to drift sluggishly back to the study.

She arranged her cushions for comfort and settled into them, staring out the windows in the still-slightly-ajar balcony door. The memories of the room and the psychic residue of the cushions heartened her; she knew Clayton would be happy with the day's events. The hypnotic flashing of Palatine Light to the north through the night lulled her to sleep. Blink, five-count, blink, five-count, blink…


	4. Possibilities

" _Where are you going?"_

Halfway through stepping out onto the porch, Michael turned around and leaned against the doorframe. "I was going to talk to the people at the Pokémon Center about my project. I'm hoping they can let me use their storage terminal to test it, and I'd do a demonstration of what I have so far."

 _"What about work on the house? I thought we could start today."_ Latias swooped down the steps to float at eye-level with him.

"Someone," Michael smiled as he loaded that word, "slept in today, and then took her sweet time eating. I figured I could make some progress on this and get back before we get into the swing of things."

 _"House work before machine work. Said so yourself two days ago. You were right. House needs work. But now machines first?"_

"People are asking for it now. It's not just about me anymore."

 _"Say that again when house falls down."_ Michael laughed. Latias did not. Silence stretched just long enough for him to get the hint.

"Alright. Look, I'm only going to be gone a couple hours." He sounded apologetic, but Latias felt he remained unyielding. "We'll start as soon as I get back, okay? We need to figure out what we have to get first."

 _"I'll go with you then."_

"I don't think that's a good idea."

A shimmer passed over Latias' body as she bristled, her light-bending plumage ruffling with her displeasure. _"Proximity strengthens bond. Use strengthens bond. Good practice. It'll be beneficial."_

"The technology that revealed you to me, that's standard in every Pokémon Center now. Refined versions, too; they'll know exactly what you are right away. I won't straight tell you not to come, we went over that last night. I just don't think it's wise. I don't want to put you in that kind of spot."

Bobbing side to side, Latias still wanted to argue, but he had a point. _"Fine. One condition! Get supplies while you're out. I'll make a list."_

"Deal," without hesitation.

 _"Yes!"_ Enthusiasm flooded Latias' mental voice. _"Thank you so much! I'll get started right away."_

"Hey, no _problem."_ Latias had already shot upstairs before he finished his sentence, and the final word came though their mental channel.

Securing paper was easy; the desk in his bedroom was well-stocked. Locating a pen proved more difficult, until she remembered that one of his sat in the drawer in her cavern home, the one she took from the study his second night here. She darted out the balcony door and down the bluffs to retrieve it. In its drawer, the wrinkled paper beside it momentarily drew her attention. Michael knew she had it; she would have to ask him about it some time. A time she was less busy.

She already was aware and dutifully recorded some of the issues she'd known about for years. The balcony door's inability to close all the way was the first item on her list. Others she had to seek out. With some she couldn't pinpoint the source of the issue, and started recording these mystery problems on the back of the page. By the time echoes of Michael's voice entered her mind, she had filled half the page on both sides with her awkward blocky script.

" _Hello, can I speak to a manager for a moment about your storage system connection?"_ Michael's hollow voice filtered back through the mental channel. He must have reached the front desk of the Pokémon center. Several seconds passed before, _"I heard you have occasional connection issues during bad weather; I think I have a solution."_ A much longer silence ensued. Latias took that opportunity to place her list and pen down on the kitchen table and float up to where the machine sat. Michael had mentioned performing a demonstration. Watching the machine at work was an opportunity Latias did not wish to pass up.

Sitting in the middle of the room on the plush carpet was Flufftail. A quick sweep of his emotions revealed anticipation, alongside the unique satisfaction of someone who knew they were doing their current assignment well. Michael's machine hummed diligently in the corner of the room where he first set it up. No longer on the floor, the machine's display sat atop a strange box. The clear front panel of this box was divided into two squares, each with a bright blue light in a corner. Two pokéballs sat inside.

The ghostly echoes of Michael's voice returning interrupted her investigations and contemplation of the fox's emotional state. _"Hi, I'm Michael Schalde. I wanted to speak with you about hosting a local storage network."_ After a long delay, _"I have some temporary hardware already set up. I can demonstrate for you, if you'd allow me to access this terminal here and connect to it. May I?"_ A string of high speed gibberish simmered under the surface of the telepathic channel then, just out of reach of Latias' ability to retrieve. She frowned as she tried to pick out any hints of what was going on. Flufftail cocked his head. One of the blue lights on the box's face turned yellow.

With a hellish shriek the Ninetales exploded into light, a glowing blur smeared across Latias' vision pointing to one of the posts in the corners of the room.

By the time her senses returned, nothing remained to show that a pokémon had been resting there most of the day. She darted over to the display, blinking through the afterimage of the Ninetales' violent disappearance to see the readout. In the corner of her eye, she noticed the yellow of the two lights now shone green. A message blinked in a large box across the top of the readout; 'REMOTE ACCESS AUTHORIZED'. The main section of the display contained several lines.

[RECALL ID: 7D6CCF98FDBED6EB]

[7D6CCF98FDBED6EB LOCATED: ZONE 0]

[EXECUTING RECALL CELL 1]

[SUCCESS. CELL 1: READY]

" _As you can see,"_ Michael's voice returned to her mind, _"there is one pokémon loaded into this system, under my name. I'll retrieve it now."_ Though she wasn't able to make much sense of the messages on the screen, the last line indicated whatever Michael intended to do worked. If he could see Flufftail on his end that meant Latias didn't just witness a tragic death. As she sighed with relief, the green light ticked yellow again. One of the pokéballs in the case disappeared with a much more subdued lightshow, and the colored indicator which couldn't make up its mind finally settled on red. _"There we are."_

She tuned out Michael's voice as she turned to look at the corner of the room where Flufftail had been sucked up. It was the same scanner-pole that stood there when she helped Michael set up this machine. One that revealed her nature to him. If it could just suck up a pokémon from anywhere in the area…

Latias blasted out of the room so fast that when she arrived back at the kitchen table downstairs, the gust of her wake blew her list off its surface. Retrieving it with shaking claws, she tried to settle her mind. Her own name carried by Michael's voice stopped her from totally succeeding. _"Latias? I'm done here, if you want to get me that list."_

 _"Oh. Yes. I'll be there shortly. Park next door, meet you there."_

When she folded her arms against her body as she always did for high-speed flight, she made sure the list was tucked between her forearm and chest. She ignored Michael's confused reply as she left the house by the balcony and streaked off towards the main part of town under cloak. She kept telling herself that Flufftail would be there when she arrived; there was no reason to be worried.

When she came to a stop over the park, she saw Michael sitting on a bench, facing one of the island's many freshwater ponds. Sure enough, a cream-colored vulpine swam in its waters. Relief at seeing Flufftail safe overrode confusion about a fire-type voluntarily immersing itself. Latias found a small cluster of trees to hide in, and her illusionary human form flickered into existence around her when her emotion-sense confirmed there was nobody nearby.

 _"Everything go well?"_ she sent to Michael as she walked out of the trees, a thoroughly pointless question if the overwhelming flow of satisfaction, confidence, and pride around him was any indicator.

"Perfectly." He stood at her arrival, and accepted the list she handed him. Looking down at it, "you uh, you write like, well, a pokémon."

 _"Most pokémon can't write at all."_

"This isn't much better." Latias let her relief at Flufftail's safety, and Michael's vast reserve of good cheer, fuel a burst of telepathic laughter in response. Michael flipped the paper over, then held up the reverse side to Latias, pointed to it, and quirked a brow.

 _"Didn't know what was at fault. Wrote down anyway to not forget."_

Flufftail walked up to the pair, and Latias dipped low to the ground as her illusion crouched in front of the fox. She took its head in both her claws. Happiness had replaced the Ninetales' anticipation, and the satisfaction of a task in hand was now satisfaction of a task completed. Latias felt as if she'd been set up.

"You sounded distracted when I called you." Michael looked down at this touchy-feely display with hands on his hips. "Something wrong?"

With as good a mood as he was in after his little experiment, Latias couldn't bring herself to burst his bubble with how much it had terrified her. Her illusion looked up at him and smiled, _"nothing. Just had to get out."_

"Ah. I was wondering why you didn't just send me the list through my head. I'm going to stop by Nola's place; I told her I'd keep her updated. Why don't you come along, take your mind off troubleshooting for a while."

 _"Fine by me."_ The three started walking back the way only one of them had come.

The tourism throng was in full swing in mid-afternoon, but fortunately the café wasn't far; to reach it they only had to skirt the edge of the downtown area where the commotion lay. Off the beaten path and well outside meal times, the Tide Street Café proved empty as they entered.

The same woman staffed the cash register as the day before, emanating palpable boredom. The majority of this boredom resolved into cheerfulness as Michael entered, along with a small collection of other positive emotions. As Flufftail entered behind him and Latias pulled up the rear, another measure of boredom resolved into displeasure, along with a degree of agitation. Still, when she greeted them it was with an upbeat voice. "Welcome to the Tide Street Café! You're… Mike, right?"

"Sure am. Is Nola around? She wanted me to keep her updated on something."

"Yeah, I'll take you to her." The girl looked down at the Ninetales then, failing to keep a frown from her features. "I'll have to ask you put the pokémon away, though."

"Lay off it, Cathy," Nola's voice came from around the corner. She appeared with a cup in one hand and a book under the other arm. "There's no customers around, the man's fine." Cathy said nothing, but Latias felt her displeasure only build. "Michael, this is my daughter Catherine. She runs the place now that I've fully given myself to living in the past." She sat at a nearby table, placing the book down. Its title, revealed; 'Manisees: The Settler Era'. "Cathy, Michael. You already know he stopped by yesterday. Back there is," Nola frowned, "Anne, I think your name was? It's been awhile, before yesterday," Latias nodded and waved as Michael took a seat at the table Nola chose.

"Hello!" Cathy responded, looking between the two. "Can I get you anything?"

"No thanks," Michael said, then turned to Nola. "I spoke with the staff at the Pokémon Center today. They agreed to help me test a storage system. I threw together some hardware last night and configured it this morning."

Nola's eyes bulged. "You finished it that fast? How much sleep do you need, boy?"

"Oh no, it's definitely not ready. Just enough to show off." Michael thought for a moment. "I think I got about four hours."

Latias' head spun around so fast her body drifted after it, and she had to make sure her illusion didn't follow suit. The man told her to rest up only to get half a night's worth himself. Guilt reared in her mind; she had slept far later than she intended, when she could have been helping him.

"I'll get you a coffee, on me," Cathy immediately retreated to the kitchen

"You said you could help me with parts yesterday," Michael said after he tried and failed to prevent Cathy's departure. "I was wondering if that offer was still on the table."

"Well, there's a couple things. Pokémon have a big presence in life on this island, and there's a couple groups who are willing to help with projects that improve their wellbeing. You might be able to convince one that this qualifies. The other avenue would be the communications slush. The island allocated a good sum of money for an undersea cable project to the mainland that fell through. Now it's set aside for grants to help communications facilities on the island. The satellite station used a bit of it to help fund adding a third dish to their array." She looked to Cathy as the younger woman returned with a small tray. "You're lucky I just brewed a pot," Nola said as she took a sip from her own cup.

"Think you can point me towards them?" Michael said as he added enough cream and sugar to his cup that Latias wasn't sure it qualified as coffee anymore.

"I'll get some information together to send to you. Don't work yourself to death."

" _Please don't!"_ Latias agreed.

Michael shrugged while taking a big swig from the cup. Putting it back down, "I'll be fine. Been through worse, in my line of work. When you get rung up for 4AM service calls where a delay can cause a medical emergency, you learn how to go without. They just called me a workaholic."

"Personally, I think you're insane," Cathy said, watching him drain the cup in record time.

"I'll go take my insanity somewhere else then," he said as he stood. "Nice to meet you, Cathy. I'll be looking forward to that info, Nola. Thanks again."

"No, thank you! You're doing our island a big favor," the older woman said, beaming.

"It'll be nice if it becomes a favor I don't have to pay for. Speaking of, you sure you don't want me to pay for this?" Michael looked to Cathy, who shook her head negative. "Alright then. I'll stop by again when I hit a milestone."

"Hopefully not too long!" Cathy called as they left. Most of her earlier cheerfulness had left, but a measure of distaste remained. Behind Latias, Flufftail fixed Cathy with a strange look as he exited last, his mind simmering with a measure of his own disdain. Latias wondered how much the Ninetales picked up on the woman's emotional state. Because how feelings read so plainly for her with her sixth sense for them, she forgot how adept some other pokémon were at reading body language.

" _Four hours?"_ The illusion fixed him with a hard stare to match her telepathic tone once they started back down the street.

"I feel fine, seriously. That was some good coffee though, maybe I should come here regularly."

" _Hardly coffee after what you did. Don't deflect. Four hours!"_

"Maybe I was stealing energy from you through our bond? Y'know I could get used to this real fast if I could use you as a sleep battery. Either way, you slept enough for the both of us. You think four's bad, try fourteen."

" _That's not how this works! And about that, I…"_ She trailed off, unsure what to say. She eventually settled for, _"Sorry."_

"Don't be, you needed it. Listen, Ms. Cute'n'fussy back there isn't the only shopkeeper who doesn't like pokémon around. Can you take Flufftail back to the house? I won't be much longer." The Ninetales disappeared into its pokéball, a display not nearly as bright or loud as the event in the machine room. Latias flinched anyway, but managed to keep her illusion from doing the same.

" _Be back soon,"_ she sent as she accepted the ball. He turned to walk down the street, and she turned to walk into the gap between buildings. There was nobody around, but it never hurt to be safe. She dissipated the illusion, leaving only her invisible body, and took off back towards home.

The mechanics of the pokéball mystified, and now slightly frightened, her. She ended up placing Flufftail's on the bannister of the second-story staircase, for Michael to handle when he got home. By the time she had given up on it, a steady stream of numbers and fractions and nonsense words filtered into her mind in Michael's voice. In even a single day, his voice didn't sound as hollow as it did yesterday through the link. The small token of progress pleased Latias greatly.

True to his word, Michael returned within an hour. He walked heavier, and not just because of the two large bags he carried. Latias relieved him of one – and almost fell out of the air from the unexpected weight – while he trudged over to the kitchen table and sat heavily in a vacant chair.

" _You look awful. Are you alright?"_

"I think I lost my second wind. Or my third, I wasn't counting."

Latias vocalized a worried sound while she transmitted, _"I told you four wasn't enough!"_

"I'll make it up tonight, I swear," he said with his head in his hands. She delivered Flufftail's pokéball while he rested, and he let the Ninetales out onto the floor across the kitchen. "Aw, you didn't let him out, poor thing." Then, rallying a bit of strength, he picked himself back up and leaned his chair back to snatch a bulky device from a smaller nearby table. "Need to make a call first, talk to the guy managing the system here already before I set up my own to replace it."

" _But it's so late. Will they be there?"_ Latias asked, floating around to his side.

"Guess I'll find out." Michael looked over to Latias, then gently pushed her away. "Transmits video, you might want to stay out of the frame.

Latias let him push her, gliding away even with the slight force Michael applied against her chest. She wasn't sure where the cameras could see, so kept her distance despite her curiosity. From the device's base slid a small tray with a keypad, and Michael punched in a code. After flipping a lid-like top open, the dark screen within lit up and displayed an idle animation as the call connected. A short moment later, the face of a severe-looking man replaced it.

"Kanto pokémon storage system," the man said in a polite tone that clashed with his appearance. This incongruity vanished a moment later, and Latias could see even separated by the angled screen and without her emotion sense that the man grew unhappy. "What do you want?" followed in a flat tone

"Steve! Haven't heard from you in a while," Michael returned a far warmer greeting. "What are you doing there, I thought you were still at the plant?"

"Shit happens. Why'd you call?" Latias wondered if it was possible for a human to look any more displeased.

"Is Bill in? I'd like to talk to him about Manisees Island."

Steve looked away from the display for a moment. "He's out 'til nine tomorrow."

"Oh, alright," Michael said, sounding a little disappointed. "I'll call back tomorrow. Thanks for the help!"

Instead of saying farewell, Steve reached up out of frame, and the call went dead.

After a few moments of silence, Latias send, _"I told you so. How do you know him?"_

Michael slumped in his chair as a measure of tiredness reasserted itself. "He worked under me at the Pokémon Center. He was let go when they installed the machines I built, but I hired him to help build them when I started the business."

" _He looked very unhappy."_

"Probably just had a rough day," Michael replied. "He takes his job way too seriously."

" _He looked unhappy with you, specifically."_

Michael shrugged. "Not sure what it'd be. I felt we got along really well, as long as we weren't talking about pokémon battles."

Latias was thinking of ways to ask him to elaborate, but he broke her concentration by making an obscene racket while he shuffled around in one of the two large bags he brought home. "Now let's see what presents I brought for you…"

" _I already know. I heard you while shopping. Fascinating, though unintelligible."_

This brushed away the remainder of his exhaustion, rousing him fully back to alertness. "I didn't say a damn word in there."

" _It's the shortcut I mentioned! I did mention…?"_

"As if I'd be able to remember right now," he said, with a hand to his forehead. "What's the secret?"

" _Pick something out of the bag. Read a word off it aloud."_

Michael reached into the bag at his feet and pulled out a box of nails. "Galvanized."

" _Now sound it out. Just in your head."_

" _Galvanized."_

" _Perfect!"_ Latias responded. _"Now pick another word. Don't tell me. Sound it out in your head."_

Michael flipped the box over. _"Eight-dee."_

" _That's not a word."_

Eyes wide, Michael looked back up at where Latias hovered across the table. "Well hell."

" _Last night, you showed me scenes. Used the mind's eye. Now you use the mind's voice."_

"Last night wiped you out. Does this drain you as much?"

" _No. You use same parts of brain. For me it requires same effort. Passive level; skimming the surface."_

Placing the box back down, Michael used his freed hands to rub his eyes. "Why couldn't you tell me this last night?"

" _You didn't know the right word. Only can use words you know. This is not speech. I take words from your mind. Assemble them. Make them sound good."_ Latias sent a short giggle before, _"This is technically hallucination."_

"And, what, hearing me narrate my shopping trip inspired a way around my lack of knowledge?"

" _More or less."_

With a gusty sigh, Michael leaned back in his chair. The wonder of a new discovery was already fading to frustration, Latias felt. "So I have even less privacy than I thought."

Latias tilted her whole body in the air, an exaggerated head-cock. _"Pardon?"_

"I thought I could at least keep my thoughts to myself. But now I can't even do that, if I think too loud."

Latias snorted. _"Thought could keep body to self. But now screaming disintegration box."_

Michael looked down at her before tilting his head back again and rubbing his temples. "So you saw that. The baffles, there's no… It was just supposed to be a prototype. It's missing all the stuff that makes using it comfortable that a pokéball has. Those poles are really just a bunch of pokéball guts on sticks. They're just much louder and brighter because I never installed the limiters and such that reduce that."

" _That was a momentary fright. Not what I meant. That machine can see me. It can steal pokémon from room. You could take me with it."_

"I'm not going to. I have no need nor desire to. I gave you my word on that."

Latias floated up over the table, bringing her nose close to his forehead where he now rested his head in his hands. _"The capability scares me. I won't enter that room. I believe you, though sometimes skittish. Don't believe the machine, but you. I trust you with my body. You trust me with your mind?"_

A small smile crept to his face when he rolled his eyes up to meet hers. "Yes, I trust you. You're already taking a risk bigger than I would in your place."

" _When the link improves, can block. Clayton kept things from me often. Your mind must acclimate. Until then; trust."_

"That's not the point. Well, it's a minor point. Maybe privacy is the wrong word; you already learned last night what I want to keep hidden from most, people look at a broken man differently. How about protection; yours, not mine. Last night was a good night for me. Usually I can't look at that picture without having to fight the urge to destroy it. Sometimes, the urge to destroy myself. But even on a good night it was enough to frighten you terribly, through how you taste feelings or whatever it is you do. What happens when I have a bad night, find myself in a bad way?"

" _Then I will endure. This will not always be fun. It shouldn't be. I have bad moments too. When channel improves, you might see. A good bond goes both ways. Don't think you're locked out long."_ She closed the final distance and nudged him with her nose. _"We hurt in similar ways. We can help each other. And when it's bad, we talk. We hear all fights and disagreements. Maybe even all unpleasantries deep down. That's just the nature of it. Please just stick with me. I promise it'll be worth it."_

Slowly, he lifted both hands to cup her head, like she'd seen him to do his Ninetales when lost in thought. A part of her railed against yet another comparison to his pokémon, but only a small part. His emotions were an open book; resignation, thoughtfulness, lingering frustration, even hope. None of a trainer's trademark possessiveness or domination.

After a moment in his gentle grasp, she even managed to relax.

"Whatever you are, it's really something special. I've never had something like this mind thing before. It's new and I don't know where it's going. But if you're willing to help me like you said, the least I could do is stick with you. Maybe I'll be able to return the favor someday." He looked up to the ceiling. "I have no idea how they priced something like this into the cost of the house."

" _Funny how it brought us together. It must be a misery magnet."_

"Maybe it'll keep us depressed until we finish working on it."

" _Maybe."_ She closed her eyes, head still in his hands, and pushed herself forward slightly to nudge his forehead again. _"But maybe it can wait. Just a day."_

"You sure?"

" _And your awful machine can wait. Tomorrow we can work on this."_

"I think I know just how to get away from it all."


	5. Retread Anew

Latias grabbed the rope connected to the front of the dinghy and gave an experimental tug. She could feel its weight resist her initial pull, but immediately after it glided smoothly through the water towards her.

"Now bring it around the side here," Michael instructed her, from his station at the miniature crane atop his larger vessel.

As soon as she did so, she found a heavy clip, terminating the davit's line, waiting for her. An image of the dinghy ready to lift sprung into Michael's mind. She was holding one line that needed to hook to it, and others waited at each rear corner. Armed with this image, making the necessary connections did not pose her any problems.

Watching the davit lift his dinghy clear out of the water underscored for Latias just how big Michael's larger boat really was. She felt proud that she had helped in her own way. Their combined efforts saw his inflatable resting at the topmost deck's rear.

"Just loosen the lines and we'll be off," Michael instructed. He provided a mental diagram how they were tied, which greatly helped her work. Freeing each of the three cleats, Latias flew back to the boat with all three ropes in hand. She tucked each in a convenient spot near where each tied, unsure how to properly neaten them.

 _"Yesterday, when you mentioned getting away? I didn't think you meant so literal,"_ she sent as she joined him on the flybridge atop the cabin.

The bow kicked out away from the dock, and halfway through turning, engines surged to life as quiet thrum under the back deck. "Why not? Being on the water is relaxing. The best way to ignore distractions is to physically leave them behind, I'd think. Now I'd love to have your company up here, but I can't promise you won't be spotted. Do you want to stay?"

She milled about in indecision for a moment, before ducking down a stairway to her left down below. _"No, it's fine."_ This led her to the pilothouse, an area with its own, more elaborate and ornate control station. For a moment she considered asking Michael to steer from down here, but she decided with such large windows ringing this space, she wouldn't be much obscured here anyway. She drifted to the other side, where another stairway down took her to a lounge and kitchen area.

She took some time exploring the vessel's interior, confirming many things she noticed during her first night's investigations. That short door that smelled of gas definitely led to an engine room, if she believed her ears. The bed in the stateroom forward still lacked its mattress.

Concerns about a lack of bedding fled her mind when she returned to the lounge and took in its details for the first time. Its windows took up considerable wall space, though not as much as the pilothouse, and were not very good for remaining hidden should someone look in. _"Do these windows have any shades?"_

 _"Yes, why?"_

Latias looked around the lounge again from the top step to the lower deck. _"I might be spotted down here too"_

 _"If you still want to see out, each window can tint; there's a switch on the bottom of each frame. Should be enough to hinder prying eyes."_

Sure enough, she found a small black rocker set into each one. Upon flipping one, the window before her darkened considerably. She moved between each window, flipping the switches, as she returned to her initial thoughts. _"If you want, can give mattress back. If I'm staying in the house, anyway. I won't be using it then."_

 _"You took that too? I was wondering,"_ she retrieved from Michael's mind. _"Has it been in this cave-house of yours?"_

 _"Yep,"_ Latias said, prodding the fixtures around the kitchen area against the lounge's forward bulkhead.

 _"In that case, you can keep it. It would be a hassle to clean I bet."_ He replied

 _"I've kept everything as clean as possible!"_

 _"'As clean as possible' doesn't exactly inspire confidence,"_ he sent. _"What else do you have down there, besides all the cushions and pillows?"_

 _"Just a table and some pictures."_

 _"How on earth did you get the mattress and table there? It can't be far from the house if you managed that."_

 _"With great effort. It is nearby. I can show you when we return,"_ Latias sent

 _"You'd do that?"_

 _"Doesn't matter much anymore. Not if I'm living in the house."_

 _"I'd think you'd keep it private just in case things between us went south."_ Latias had to admit he had a point. Keeping it hidden for just awhile longer sounded like a good idea, when she thought about it. She had no guarantees his good nature would hold. She didn't want to outright admit he was right about this, however, so she silently amused herself with the finer details of the vessel's interior design and decoration for a while.

Before long, however, she found herself on an L-shaped couch at the back of the lounge, looking behind them. _"Have any way to see farther? Like one of those stereotypical spyglasses?"_

 _"I have binoculars up here, if you want to borrow them. Come up to the stairs,"_ Michael replied. When she complied, she found them dangling down through the hatch, halfway up. She snatched them away, quickly returned to her comfortable lounge perch, and raised them to her eyes. The lenses weren't even adjusted to allow her to see through, let alone clearly.

Latias fiddled with them for the remainder of their short journey to the bay's opposite side, giving up as Michael's vessel slowed to a stop. Their design relied too much on human physiology to be any use to her. Michael sent her a message as she put the binoculars down on a table behind her. _"You can come up now."_

She found Michael relocated to the pilothouse. Michael had now tinted the windows up there as well, but a still-clear skylight provided bright natural illumination. Another couch against a wall to Latias' left sat behind a rectangular table holding a six-pack of water bottles, energy bars, and the book Michael borrowed from Nola two days ago. Latias settled down on one end of the couch and extracted a water bottle from its plastic pack while Michael finished fiddling with displays and equipment.

"So we're in this for the long haul," he said as he finally sat down beside her. "I'm surprised you wanted to do something like this. You only met me what, two days before? And it wasn't a great start, at that."

 _"I'm surprised you agreed to it."_

"I didn't know it'd be permanent."

 _"It's not permanent. It's just difficult to sever."_

"So why'd you do it?" Michael asked. "I said before I'm surprised you took such a risk in the first place. This seems like a big liability for you. Was it just to keep tabs on me, for peace of mind or something?"

 _"A little, but not my biggest concern. Clayton would want me to meet you. Said I should befriend house's next occupant. Be their friend as I was his. This the fastest way to know you. Speech, my voice, it's important to me. This way I can talk, too."_

Michael sighed and rubbed his face before shrugging. "Fine, that'll have to do. Where do we start?"

 _"Images and text are a good start. You can conjure clear mental images. They're easy to pull from your mind. I still have trouble sending them. I want to find out why."_ Latias removed the plastic cover from the water bottle with her mouth while she mentally spoke. Underneath it she found a pull-up sports style cap. _"Thanks for this, by the way. Much more convenient."_

"I figured you might have trouble with the twisting. How are we going to do this?"

 _"We can start with the book. Pick a page, read it, close it. Recall it to your mind after reading. Then I'll try to send it back."_

Michael pulled Nola's book to himself and opened it to a random page in the middle. His voice filtered quietly through their mental channel, racing through sentences on the page before him. After a few minutes he closed the book, and she her eyes.

The bottom half of the page he held in his mind contained a picture of an old sailing ship. Words above spoke of that ship's design and construction. Believing it'd be easiest to start simple, Latias took a copy in her own mind and removed text, sending back just a blank white page with a picture at the bottom when she looked at Michael once more.

He jerked back in his seat, but this time no unintelligible cursing ensued. After a moment, "It's like it's overlaid on top of my eyesight. It just pops up right in front of my face. Do you think you can put it somewhere else? When I imagine things I don't actually see them."

 _"Before I do, how is the quality?"_

"There's no text, but besides that the picture just looks a little off. I'm not sure how I'd describe it though. It's not bad, I can definitely see what it's supposed to be. Oh, it's gone now, thank you."

 _"Alright, imagine the page again."_ She closed her eyes again to focus.

As the page appeared back in his mind, Latias wondered if her images had always been sent to Clayton atop his vision. If so, he had never complained. It seemed like it should be natural; her voice goes into their hearing, so her images should go into their sight. She never knew it would be so much more disruptive.

This time, confronted with the image, she didn't just pull it out. She surrounded it, felt all spaces it occupied, the shape of its mental container. His mental image sat in a place between senses and memory, not quite in either. On a whim, instead of copying it and sending it, she tried replacing it with something else. She tried to overwrite the page with an image of Manisees Lighthouse's exterior, but she couldn't quite get it clear.

Before she could finish the process, she felt Michael's hands on her shoulders. Fatigue washed over her as soon as she aborted her attempt, and her mouth felt terribly dry. When she opened her eyes, she found him leaning over her, worry spreading over his emotions.

"Sorry, my mind must have wandered. Did you tire yourself out trying to chase it down?"

 _"No. Tried to replace. With lighthouse."_

"Oh, that was you then. It worked! A little fuzzy, but it worked. That's much better." An apologetic look passed over his features then, "well, much better for me. You look like you had a rough time of it."

 _"Will be fine. Just a moment."_ She retrieved the water bottle from she previously opened and drained a quarter of its contents.

"I can't really see sharing images as very important. It's not like we'll have to do it constantly, unlike voice."

After she composed herself, she looked back into Michael's mind. This time she tried putting an image of just the page's text portion, and didn't try to perfect it. That smaller, more nebulous image still drained her, but not nearly as much. After a short period the page resolved itself in its entirety as Michael supplied it from memory.

When he did so, she noticed another part of his mind at this depth. Snippets of text from the page flit around it, running together and breaking apart. Snatching some words from his mind like she did when trying to speak, she assembled a message. _"Can you hear me now?"_

Michael furrowed his brow. "Yeah I can. Not hearing though, there's no sound. I just get the words."

 _"Interesting."_

"Not really. I like your voice."

Latias smiled before taking another long pull from the water bottle. _"Thank you! What I did just now drains more. Not sure why. We'll leave it for now."_

"It's definitely different. I have a hard time figuring out if I'm thinking that stuff on my own or if you're doing it." A short laugh, "I only knew then because I don't have any reason to ask myself that question."

 _"I've never worked those areas much before. I pulled from them but never placed."_

"I thought you've been doing this for several decades now."

 _"I just used senses to send. Might explain why Clayton disliked sent text."_

"You never did an adjustment period like this? Never took time to experiment?"

Latias shook her head. _"We just let it expand naturally. Found options as they opened up. If it worked we didn't seek alternatives. This time, I know there's more. With time. With effort. So we work on it consciously. Time to try new things."_

"New things, then. You said it could also do memories. How does that work?"

 _"We already have once, that first night. You asked about images but sent memories. That's partially why it required so much. Just replay them in your head."_

"I guess it's not new after all. Don't overdo it this time," Michael said as he closed his eyes and leaned back. Latias saw his mind flip between several different scenes before finally setting on one.

Centered in a large, sunlit room, sat an open travel cage. Michael's perspective, crouched near the carpet, looked back and forth between it and a toddler, sitting on the floor against a recliner. Words filtered through in his voice, indistinct. Much clearer, a woman's voice returned, "Give it time." Before long a Vulpix emerged from the cage, too young to have more than one tail.

Latias pieced together context from how the memory anchored to his mind. The Vulpix was Flufftail, just after they brought him home. The woman was Michael's wife, and the toddler their firstborn daughter. Latias broke off her connection before his memory had progressed very far – like dreams, memories had strange properties when it came to elapsed time, and were equally immersive when experienced this way – because she was satisfied she completed her test successfully. Even still, she felt drained when she returned to reality.

Michael still had his eyes closed when she picked her water bottle off the couch. For the first time since she'd met him, thinking about his family had brought him positive emotions. She felt heartened; it meant not every reminder of his family hurt him. She accidentally roused him when she placed her water bottle back down, its contents sloshing around and thumping against the inside of its cap. When he looked back at her, a large portion of his positive emotions fled.

"Was it easier this time?"

 _"I didn't watch for long. Memories will be difficult for a while. They connect to so many different things."_

"You still look tired though, let's take a bit of a break. Eating something might help." He waited while she tore open one of the energy bars with the tip of a claw. "You sound like such an expert on all this. I still can't believe you've never explored your old connection this way."

 _"Now I can speak from experience,"_ she said while chewing. _"Before I could not. Clayton didn't like experimenting. We didn't know what we could do. Not until we ran across it accidentally. The start of that connection was rough."_ She looked down then, slumping, _"and it wasn't entirely intentional."_

After a couple seconds of staring at her, Michael finally replied, "I can't imagine how you do that accidentally."

 _"Speech fascinated me. I knew I could feel minds. But I couldn't enter them easily. Couldn't do anything but little tricks. I wanted to speak to Clayton. Wanted to steal the secret of speech. I was young, stupid, and inconsiderate. So I forced my way in. I didn't realize it was long term."_

"Oh. How, uh, how did he take it?"

 _"He got used to it eventually. Really loved some parts of it, but…"_ After a moment's pause she sent, much quieter, _"I don't think he ever forgave me."_

Moments passed in silence, Michael trying to think of what to say, and Latias eating slowly, unwilling to say anything. When he finally did, he spoke almost as quietly as Latias had. "If he loved it in the end, isn't that all that matters? What parts did he like?"

 _"The dreams, mostly. We did a lot in our dreams. Well, in his dreams. He liked that I could send pictures. Especially of places he couldn't go. He liked voice too, but not mine. He said it was beautiful once developed. But he didn't like me using it. Always wanted to hear her voice instead."_ Michael quirked his brow, and she sensed his confusion. _"Anne's"_

"I thought you were Anne."

 _"No!"_ she sent with stern tone, then placed the word into his deeper mind-spaces she explored earlier for good measure. _"I take her image when I must. I know little else. But she is not me. With voice I have a choice. My voice is my own, my expression. It belongs to no other but me. I will use her voice no longer."_

"Alright, alright, fine! I didn't know she was a different person, didn't know her story."

After taking a moment to calm herself, _"He put highest priority on my safety. But he wanted me to experience town. I told him about my illusions. He told me about her. She was his lover long ago. Many memories meant many good references. Made the illusion easier to craft. Eventually wanted me to use it more. When looking like her, sounding like her. It comforted him, so I complied. Those moments I was Anne. Else I was Latias."_

Michael's emotions read a strange mix of incredulity and contempt. Some sympathy echoed beneath, for her. The others, not for her. _"I will not let you speak ill,"_ she pre-empted him.

He snorted and looked away, towards the helm's control panels. "Fine. I'll just say this then; I think it's criminal that he called you by someone else's name half the time and never gave you your own."

 _"Latias is my name. Been called that longer than you Michael."_

"Are there other Latiases, Latiai, whatever it is, out there?"

She paused a moment before, _"I used to live in a flock. I was separated when I was young. I found my way to Manisees Island. Never left. Haven't seen another since, but they exist. Latios too; same species, different human name. Still haven't figured out why."_

"Then calling you Latias isn't the same. I wouldn't be happy if you went around calling me 'Human'. Even 'Schalde' would grate after a while."

 _"You are free to feel so, Human."_ She sent in a lighthearted tone, and smiled.

"Very funny. It feels like I'm insulting you, that's all. If I can think of one good enough, will you let me give you one? So I can start to give you the respect you deserve."

She eyed him critically before sending, _"Not now, but I will consider it."_

"Good. That's all I ask. Now when you finish," he was interrupted by an urgent chime from the controls. "Damnit, we're drifting. I need to set the anchor again. I'll be right back." While he dashed out a thin doorway in the pilothouse's side, Latias sliced open another energy bar and drifted over to where he exited. Through a portside window she could see Manisees Lighthouse, dominating the short cliffs' top. Sending Michael some memories of her youth there would be a good exercise.

Latias moved to watch him work through the windows in front. Working an anchor struck her as a lot of work just to keep something still. It apparently didn't even work the first time. Even after he returned he didn't immediately sit, instead going back to the controls and messing with the displays more. Latias watched over his shoulder, but his work here was only slightly less mystifying to her than when he set up his pokémon detection machine. She eventually gave up trying to understand and returned to her seat.

"As I was saying," he said when he finally sat back down, "I'd like to see if we can work with more abstract things. I was able to send you the design of that knot earlier, but that's simple stuff, not far removed from a picture. What about something really complex? Do you think I can relate something really foreign to you?"

 _"It's worth a shot, I guess."_ Latias let her doubt color her mental voice.

"Anything you're interested in first?"

 _"A pokéball,"_ she replied without hesitation.

"Alright, let's try it."

Latias peered into his mind and found something similar to a picture with multiple layers, each explaining different processes and details. Devices and structures part of the explanations on one layer would themselves be explained on other layers. Some details would flit in and out, explanations changing as Michael figured out what he might have thought were better ways of phrasing or framing aspects and functions. She'd never seen Clayton try something like this; if he had to explain something it would always be verbally. This organization of knowledge on a particular subject was a new experience for her, a fascinating one.

It was all terribly informative, but past the most basic point Latias still couldn't understand any of it.

 _"I don't think this is working. I can't soak up all your knowledge. Not even on a single subject."_

"Well, I thought we'd give it a go. It'd be nice to have an assistant sometimes."

 _"Maybe when the channel is older. I might be able to look deeper."_

"Back burner, then. What's next?"

 _"I have an idea. I know I can read your memories. It may be difficult, but I'm capable. I want to try to send one."_

"Is it going to be even more difficult than reading mine?"

 _"Sending is always harder than reading."_ Latias replied, before quickly adding, _"But I will be careful! I've been good so far."_

"If you insist. What do I have to do?" Michael took a water bottle out of the pack for himself.

 _"Nothing. Just relax."_

"I love relaxing. Hit me."

Bringing to her mind a memory of life above Manisees Lighthouse's lamp, Latias closed her eyes and settled herself on her stretch of couch. Her chosen memory remained clear despite age; nesting around the rim above the lantern room, watching the lens assembly below rotating several times every minute around its green lamp. As she started feeding it to Michael, though their link his voice returned. _"Just don't overdo it."_

 _"I won't!"_

* * *

With a head-start, Michael only needed to hit one middle step to climb back to the pilothouse. His first aid kit's rugged housing protected it through his careless toss onto a flat section at one side of the helm console. He moved everything on the table to another section as fast as possible, sweeping discarded plastic off its surface. When he dropped to a crouch to unpin the table's support, he noticed one of Latias' wings had slumped beneath it. His work's breakneck pace only slowed to delicately lift her errant wing up and aside. Its lack of joint up its length hindered his efforts until he was able to rotate it at a good angle from its base and swing it over the tabletop

Without its support pin, the table's support slid down through its mounting ring, dropping its surface to match the couch's level. Pulling cushions down from a shelf behind it, Michael hastily arranged their former workspace into a small bed.

Inside the first aid kit were two different pokémon diagnostic devices. One for trainers to hook their pokéballs into; Michael never used it but kept it for preparedness' sake. Another looked like a collar, with currently-dormant displays ringing its smooth outer surface. He clipped this around Latias' limp neck and thumbed it on as he tried to rearrange her inert body into a more comfortable position than her collapse against the rear wall had granted her, before covering her body with a blanket.

The diagnostic collar beeped and flashed its way through an initialization routine while Michael returned to the kit. He pulled a revive and a restore from within and set them on a corner of his impromptu medical theatre. Happy greens and relaxed blues played across the collar's surface; no critical problems found. A yellow [SLP] indicator flashed near the collar's clasp.

Michael sighed in relief and collapsed back into his helm's chair, spun around to face his friend-turned-patient. Most of this relief stemmed from the fact that, aside from applying one of his stock of restores, he had no idea what he would have done if something serious revealed itself. He had no problems with an emergency trip to the pokémon center, though it'd require him to leave his larger vessel here unattended while he took the much faster dinghy back to town. For her sake though, he felt she might want to avoid that whole affair. All this ignoring the fact she wasn't even his pokémon to begin with.

Irritation filled a void left by fear's departure. Even if he wanted to catch her, she struck him as the type of pokémon that would be very disobedient in captivity. Besides her own secrecy, Latias seemed to him to live moment-to-moment, not demonstrating much forethought. This was the perfect example; as soon as he's totally immersed in the mental mumbo-jumbo she piped into his brain, no longer paying attention and able to stop her, she takes the opportunity to tire herself to passing out. In the future, he'll have to be more forceful about stopping these mentally intense operations she wants to attempt, her insistence on him avoiding trainer-like behavior be damned.

With Latias incapacitated, no reason to stay on the water presented itself. He charged the boat's batteries and worked its engines just getting out here, fulfilling his only reason for the trip besides solitude. Worries about potential complications further motivated him to make a quick return. So, with a final look over his shoulder at Latias' sleeping form, he left the pilothouse to take up the anchor he had just recently set.

While working the electric winch and hauling the heavy metal aboard, he kept looking towards Manisees Lighthouse. The memory she sent him of that place was so real, it didn't feel like a memory at all. While she was still able to send it, he felt like he had actually been transported there. Its gradual fading alarmed him when he noticed it, but he hadn't been able to break the connection himself. Such potential needn't be used maliciously to harm him, and Latias' seeming carelessness might get him in trouble with some bad timing.

While a flybridge offered some convenience, he didn't want to leave Latias' side for long. Back in the pilothouse, she still slept soundly and soundlessly. Laying down and mostly under a blanket, anyone looking into his bridge would have a very hard time spotting her, so Michael had little reason to control his boat from anywhere but there. Returning to his chair, he held a switch to kick the bow towards home, and throttled the vessel's dual diesels back up. Up here, their sound was merely a quiet pilothouse-permeating purr, filling space in the beeping that marked Latias' pulse.

Aside from lazily dodging a few lobster pods, trekking home proved as uneventful as trekking out. He killed the engines at his home pier and moved forward, snatching up a rope tied to a front cleat. Latias didn't neaten his lines, and a slight tangle had formed he had to loosen as he brought it back towards the stern, where another rope lay. With both in hand, he climbed onto the gunwale and waited.

He had good aim; his boat drifted close to the pier, and he jumped across just before it lightly bounced off rubber fenders hanging from its side. He quickly hooked the stern line's pre-tied loop to a dock cleat and sprinted forward holding his bow line, slinging it around a second cleat and pulling on it to reel the boat in. Only after tying it off did he see Sparkles sitting on the shore with a floatation ring in her jaws, and chuckled to himself. It had been a very long time since he'd tied his boat off solo without someone looking out for him, and that didn't look like it was going to change just because he left his pokémon home.

She followed him back onboard – still carrying her flotation ring – once the boat was tied securely to the dock. When he returned to his captain's chair, Sparkles entered behind him and, with a toss of her head, chucked her cargo into an under-table compartment. She looked to where Latias lay and made a sound in her throat Michael couldn't decipher past a lack of hostility. He followed her gaze to his ward, the collar still beeping away.

For their short time together and what trouble Latias gave him – and he had to admit it wasn't a lot – he found he still cared for her greatly already. Years had passed since he last had daily companionship he could talk to. Despite her distrust of his work, she struck him as at least interested in it, something not even his wife could claim.

His immediate problem was figuring out how to get her back into the house. She wasn't very heavy, but did weigh enough to be unwieldy. She was a meter and a half long, in his estimate, and he couldn't just fold her wings; they were stiff their whole length. He also didn't want to risk damaging her strange glassy feathers, hoping he hadn't already when he moved her. Laid out as she was now, he realized he saw her as very delicate despite her size.

His best bet was to hope she could wake up.

 _"Latias?"_ he thought to himself. This thought-voice was a process he was still trying to consciously grasp, despite Latias teaching him he had always done it while reading to himself without thinking about it. _"We're home, Latias. Are you able to move?"_ Speaking full sentences brought a realization; his mental voice always had a slight echo those few times he used it alone to speak to her. Now there was none. Despite his diagnostic collar telling him Latias was in perfect health, worry shot through the back of his mind. Could their mental connection burn out?

He leaned over a corner of the makeshift bedding and spoke as quietly as his concern would allow, "Latias, it's time to wake up." He was rewarded with fluttering lids, and soon after, a bright yellow iris. No sooner did she focus on his face did he see her ears twitch to the beeping sound. Her claws immediately shot to the collar, scrabbling at it as she weakly thrashed about.

"Hold on, hold on, stop it! Come here, let me get it off you."

Latias almost immediately complied, though her worrying silence continued. Michael quickly unhooked the device around her neck, and cursed when several alarms started after he broke its connection. He fumbled with it until he managed to shut it off, and placed it back in his first aid kit. "I put it on you to make sure you were still okay after you passed out, that's all. How are you feeling?"

She stared at him. Just as fear started to consume him, _"Oh."_ Then, looking away from him, _"Sorry."_

"I told you not to go overboard."

 _"You're scared. For me?"_

"Yes, for you. You pass out on me, and it felt like something between us broke. In my head. After all we put into it I didn't want that damaged."

 _"Doesn't work asleep. When I'm asleep."_ She looked back to him then, with sparkling eyes. _"Thank you."_

"Don't mention it, I guess you just needed a nap." Michael looked over to the clock set into the control panel. "You've been out a little over half an hour."

 _"No, about bond. Thanks for worrying. Means a lot."_

He smiled back at her. "I said don't mention it. Think you can get up?"

 _"I can move."_

"Good. I wasn't sure how to move you without hurting you. I hope I didn't when I shifted you before; your wings were a little awkward."

 _"You touched me?"_ A subtle lightshow ensued as Latias checked over her feathers, playing patterns across her body and turning parts of it invisible. Satisfied everything was in order, _"Guess not roughly."_

"Just enough to make you comfortable. Was I not supposed to?"

 _"Should've been awake."_ Her ever-surrounding voice sounded amused as she floated off the bed. _"I'll make up,"_ Suddenly her arms were around him, her neck wrapped over his shoulder and around his own. Michael looked down past her wing to Sparkles, who snorted at their affectionate display. The sound roused him from his shock, and he finally returned her gesture, wrapping one arm over the base of her wings and his other below. Her feathers weren't as stiff against his arms as he expected, and through them he felt her body's pleasant warmth.

How long had it been since someone hugged him?

 _"Thank you again,"_ she said, when she finally broke away.

"For the third time, don't mention it. I'm happy to help." He looked her body up and down then, "That didn't mess up your-" A rainbow of colors flowing over her chest interrupted him, showing no distortion or adverse effect.

 _"Not rough. Not careless. It's fine."_

"If you say so. Let's get you inside, before you go all narcoleptic on me again."

Latias looked around, noticing their surroundings for the first time. _"We're home?"_

"Yeah. I decided to call off the rest of our little experimentation."

Latias looked to the floor. _"Fine. Another time."_

"Another time. Let's get inside."

Latias nuzzled her cheek against his before turning to go, floating over Sparkles head. The Ninetales sat primly as she waited for them to leave. _"Friend's feeling impatient,"_ Latias sent, then looked back at him over a tipped wing. _"But she thinks we're cute."_

Michael shook his head as he got up to follow Latias out. With friends like these, he had enough trouble in his life.


	6. Part Two: Second Chances

Even without Michael's racket beside her disrupting her concentration, the task before her would prove difficult. With him digging through his bags of hardware supplies, it became nigh impossible. Latias knew she had nobody to blame than herself; her writing was just that bad. Half the list of needed repairs she drafted two days ago was illegible to her.

"What should we work on first?" Michael applied the pressure. Latias anxiously flipped her list over several times, looking for any line that would prove coherent. She was glad he couldn't read emotions like she could, or he'd know exactly how embarrassed she felt. He stopped digging through his supplies and looked over at her. "Seriously, just pick anything."

" _The sink in the downstairs bathroom leaks badly,"_ she rattled off the first line she understood at a glance. She watched as Michael returned to his search. _"How did you comprehend this list?"_

"I honestly just skipped any line I couldn't figure out," he replied, without even looking up.

Latias' embarrassment deepened further. _"Think you can teach me to write well?"_

Halting his quest and looking at her, he said, "I don't think you have the right hands for it."

She constructed a wordless sound of frustration within his mind.

"I don't see why it's really necessary. We could have handled that better with you just saying it to me as we went. I wouldn't get busted up over not mastering a more complex and less efficient communication method." His comments didn't help her feel any better until he continued, "Besides, I'll take any excuse I can get to hear your voice more."

" _You really mean that?"_

"It's been a long time since I had someone to talk to daily. Even better when it's so pleasant to the ear. Er, the head. Whatever."

Snorting out a laugh, Latias replied, _"I'll take the compliment, however unartfully worded. Let's get to work."_

"Grab my toolbox from upstairs, I'll take a look at this thing."

" _Where is it?"_

"It's next to the…" Michael paused for a moment. "Ah."

" _I'm not going in there."_

"Yeah yeah, I'll grab it." He started up the stairs before calling back, "One of these days I'm going to show you there's nothing to worry about."

" _We have more important things to do today,"_ she sent him while inspecting the dripping faucet.

" _Your peace of mind is pretty important,"_ he replied mentally.

" _House first."_

When he came back down the stairs, a metallic clunk accompanied every step. Latias floated up over the sink basin to make room for him in the small bathroom. He placed a large grey toolbox down next to the sink cabinet and kneeled in front of it. "Do you know how to read fractions?"

" _Yeah,"_ Latias let a bit of indignation into her constructed voice.

"Alright. Good thing, because I don't know if this thing is in imperial or metric," he continued as he crawled inside the cabinet with a flashlight.

" _Imperial and metric?"_

Images of two different sets of numbers appeared in his mind in response to her question, each one part of a different progression and related differently, measuring length and weight and size. She observed the mathematic interplay for a moment before cutting back in, _"Why two?"_

"Nobody can ever agree on- damnit!" Latias tilted downward in the air to see what caused a loud bang inside the cabinet. Michael's flashlight rolled around on the bottom, shining its light outside. He snatched it with a muted curse and pointed it back upward. "Nobody can ever agree on anything. Metric in Hoenn, imperial in Unova, god knows what else where else. I'm pretty sure there's a region that uses both interchangeably." An image with a wrench appeared in his mind. _"14mm."_

Latias dug in his toolbox for the pile of shiny metal wrenches, looking each over for a label. She had gone through most of them before she found one matching his description. Taking it in both claws, she ferried it almost reverently over to the cabinet, which Michael was already filling with pulses of frustration. Latias expected him to handle these jobs with the same enthusiasm he tackled assembling his machines. For the first time, she wondered if taking on the house's problems first might have been a bad idea.

After several metal clanks sounded from within, he handed it back out, sending her, _"17mm."_ Latias took the tool from him and exchanged it for the requested size. The clanking sound resumed shortly after, along with the pulses of his irritation.

" _What's wrong? You liked it when we assembled your boxes. What's wrong with assembling a sink?"_ An unarticulated proto-curse filtered back through her mental connection, and she said no more.

The shiny metal bar thrust back out of the cabinet again, and this time Michael didn't specify the new size silently. "Give me, uh, what is it. Five-eighths?" Once more she rooted through his disorganized toolbox before finding the next size and handing it back. After another muted cacophony, he slid himself out of the cabinet halfway. "Can you move shit with your mind?"

" _If you want telekinesis, get an Alakazam. My physical influence on objects is very small."_

"Damn. Was hoping you could save me some effort up in here," he muttered, returning to his earlier position.

Closing her eyes, Latias tapped into his. His flashlight's beam illuminated a clump of hardware at the back of the cabinet's top, corroded and rusted in place. She couldn't quite get a clear picture, with how he was constantly looking down at his tools and changing the angle he looked at the problem.

" _Stop that, stop moving. Just look up at it."_

"What, are you in my eyes? I'm not going to let you exhaust yourself again."

" _I'm fine!"_

"Like hell you are," Michael said, just before his vision went black. At first Latias thought he might have learned on his own how to block her out, far earlier than expected. After a few moments a gentle reddish glow filled the dark field, proving otherwise.

" _Come on, why'd you close your eyes?"_

"You're not using my eyeballs as your own. Not until our connection has settled to a point it doesn't require a lot of effort on your part." Though she made a frustrated noise in her throat, Latias didn't push the issue.

If he noticed, he didn't comment. "Looks like I won't be able to do anything before I disconnect these lines anyway. Can you hand me the big towel on the rack out there?" Navigating the confines of the small space, Latias once again wished humans had a little more consideration for those whose bodies were not vertically oriented. She tossed it over Michael's legs, and he quickly snatched it up before he wiggled out of the space and rolled onto his stomach.

More muted curses and frustration filtered back out of the cabinet as he worked at closing valves and unscrewing connectors. Latias drifted backwards out of the room, putting some space between herself and his negative emotions. She found solace in the fact that, if this was how he acted when angered, she had not yet earned his true ire.

A fourth mind entered the range of her emotion-sense, drawing her attention from Michael's annoyed antics. Someone was approaching the house, emanating hope, anticipation, and anxiety. _"We have a visitor!"_

Michael drew out a groan as he slid out from the cabinet and stood. "Just when I actually accomplish something, figures. Who is it?"

" _I have no clue, can't see through walls."_

"Funny," he said as he brushed rust flakes from his shoulders. "Hide or stealth up or whatever, I'll tell you if they're coming inside."

Latias drifted upstairs as he walked towards the front door, and secured herself in the study. Both Ninetales sat on the deck, and upon her entrance behind them they paused their contemplation of Palatine Light to regard her. She waved at them as she settled into her makeshift bedding and tapped into Michael's sense of hearing. She didn't want to be stuck listening to one side of his conversation. Her defiance of his earlier orders brought a bout of smug satisfaction.

The new mind stopped outside the front door, and a measure of confusion entered its emotional mix. Latias made a mental note to add 'broken doorbell' to her list of repairs; she hadn't written down any external problems on her first pass, even ones she'd already known.

Michael answered the door a few seconds after the new arrival finally knocked."Ah! I didn't expect the notes to be delivered in person," he exclaimed. "Cathy, was it?"

"Yep! I thought I'd stop by, figured it'd get lonely out here with no neighbors."

"Can be," Michael replied. "I've been keeping busy though. This place needs a lot of work."

"Looks it. Here you go," There was a rustle of heavy paper before Cathy spoke again. "Have you had a look around the island since you got here?"

"Hadn't really the time."

"I could give you the grand tour, if you want."

"That's generous of you," Michael replied slowly, "but I'm a little tied up here at the moment. You caught me in the middle of dismantling a sink."

"Another day's fine," Cathy said, undeterred. "As long as it's soon! You live here now, you need to see all the places we don't tell tourists about. You need a native to guide you around all the secrets. There's a really great restaurant far off the backroads for example, wonderful place to have dinner."

Something about the last line caught Michael off-guard, and Latias felt his mind shift gears. "How about I stop by the café tomorrow morning. We can go over it then?"

Cathy's emotional signature executed a set of complex jumps and interactions, concluding with a muted victorious contentment. "Sounds like a plan. I won't keep you any longer; this place needs all the help it can get. See you tomorrow!"

"See you then. Thanks for getting this to me so quickly." Shortly after, Latias heard the door close through Michael's ears. She opened her own door and floated back down the stairs.

Michael was standing with his head against the inside of the front door, a thick paper packet under one arm. _"What's wrong?"_ Latias asked after a moment.

"I think she wants to go on a date with me."

Latias only knew of the concept in the most abstract sense, from snippets of Clayton's memories shared long ago. Then, at least, it seemed very positive. _"Is that a bad thing?"_

A flash of anger coursed through Michael's emotions, but she felt him push it aside. Instead, he just sighed loudly. "Last woman I dated died not too long ago, Latias, sometime after I married her. Not the most complex concepts at play here, come on."

" _You're not talking to another human. Forgive me for not knowing every social intricacy."_

"Right, I'm discussing my love life with a damn pokémon."

" _With a friend,"_ she replied, doing her best to strip her own mounting irritation from her mental voice. _"I want to help, if I can. You didn't just turn her away. What's on your mind?"_

"This thing we have, I think it's great," he said, sitting on the second step of the stairway. But yesterday you reminded me I used to have so much more. There's things you can't do, and more you're probably not willing to. It'd be nice to have some of that back."

Latias bristled, though tried her best to hide it. She might not be able to do some things, but she could simulate an awful lot in the right conditions. Unwilling, however, was more accurate; memories of moving around this very house with someone else's face and voice momentarily surfaced in her mind. The implication underneath hurt her the most; that she was incapable of being what he needed her to be. It might just be her blindness to human customs again, but Clayton never needed anyone else.

"But I don't know if I can get back into that game. I don't know if I want to," he continued. "It won't be the same, it can't be. Even if we hit it off, she'll never be able to replace my family, that's something I'm never going to get back."

Floating close, Latias dropped to eye level in front of him. If he needed guidance, she could at least try to provide him direction like that she received. _"What would they want for you?"_

Underneath his confused expression, Latias could pick up a half-formed comment in his mind about how strange a question that was coming from her before he answered. "Well, Mara wasn't one to dwell on the past," he began slowly. "She was too nice for her own good anyway. Everyone else's happiness came first. She stood by me through things I'm sure would have earned me a divorce from anyone else." He dropped his head into his hands. "Just makes it feel worse in a way, like I'd be taking advantage of her."

Beneath the level she normally skimmed, Latias could feel his thoughts spiraling down on themselves. His mood had already darkened considerably. She tried to throw a psychic wrench in his mental corkscrew. _"Stop that. You're making this harder on yourself."_

"You're not making it much easier."

Once more, Latias pushed aside her umbrage. _"Listen, I was fortunate. Clayton told me what he wanted of me. To know other people as I knew him. Like I said yesterday, that's why I'm here."_ Latias settled to the floor at the base of the first step, placing her claws on his knees and looking up at him from between his hands. _"You didn't get that blessing. But it sounds like she'd want the same. There's a chance of happiness for you here. It might be slim, might not fix everything. But it'd be worth a shot. I'm sure she'd tell you to chase it. Tell you to not dwell on the past."_

"Fine. I'm not going to say you're right, I can't know that, but I'll give it a shot. Worst case; I find there's really nothing there and just walk away."

" _Good! Tomorrow."_ Latias lifted back into the air, not quite reflecting her heavier heart at this conclusion, however good she felt it would be for him. _"Now, discussing love life with a pokémon concluded. Shall we get back to work?"_

"I, uh," Michael stood as well, slowly. "How about we come back to this in a little bit."

Latias snorted. _"Always so eager to not work on house. Such a distracted man. Why even buy a house that needed work?"_

"Honestly? Thing was dirt cheap, priced to move." He barked out a hollow-sounding laugh. "I'm retired young, living off patents and royalties. I have money, but not an endless supply." His mood related no signs of deception, but neither did it show any levity to accompany the lighthearted delivery. Latias guessed this only answered the question in part.

" _And…?"_

The response earned her a short but hard look before he relented. "And I thought I needed a big project to lose myself in. I didn't know there'd be one here waiting for me, in the storage system project."

" _There's many other things to occupy you here. Why a house? You were angry while working on the sink. This doesn't strike me as your first choice."_

His hard look returned. "You're asking an awful lot of questions. What answer will satisfy you?"

" _The full answer."_

"Would you rather I had not moved in? Sounds like you're wondering why I'm even here."

Eyes wide, Latias recoiled from his suggestion. _"No, not at all!"_ Then she let sarcasm replace shock in her voice. _"Besides, I'm the one who's not good enough. You had so much more."_

"That's not even about you!" Michael said, exasperated. "This is totally different. It's, how can I explain it…" As he trailed off he fixed her with a look she hadn't seen him wear before, an exaggerated form of the frustrated confusion that suddenly gripped his emotions. "Why would I have to explain it?" His expression deepened, striking a note of fear in the back of Latias' mind. From his mind she heard him answer himself, _"If she didn't already know."_ Then, aloud, "Just what were you to him?"

His question resonated with other questions of her own. Questions that outlasted Clayton. Questions she tried to bury. Instead of answering, she tried to deflect. _"I told you our first night with this."_ Meanwhile, she started drifting to her left. She could get around his reach and leave by the open back door if she had to…

"No, you told me what he was to you. And even then you said some flowery bullshit that sounded strange to me, but after your little clarification I didn't think too hard about it. But now it sounds an awful lot like you can't really tell the difference between a man's bond with a pokémon and a romantic relationship."

Latias was about to execute her escape plan when something within Michael's emotions snapped, the building fury all at once replaced by the shock of understanding. "He had you pretending to be his girlfriend." She looked away from him, but didn't move any further away, holding place even as he stepped closer to her. "Yesterday, when you told me he used to have you play dress-up, you were very adamant you and this Anne character were two different people. He treated them very different, didn't he?"

" _It was the only way he'd appreciate me!"_ she snapped. Her focus was shot; the message transmitted louder than she had intended, and without her putting sufficient care into her speech each syllable echoed before and behind itself. Michael winced at the mental noise. _"I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"_

"No it's fine, don't worry about it." In contrast to her outburst, his voice was much gentler than it had been. "You played along because you wanted his approval. You'd take it any way you could get it. He sounds like he was a neglectful fath- no, he sounds like he was really your trainer."

" _He never captured me,"_ Latias controlled her voice better, but didn't scrub all the anger out of it. _"He never made me fight."_

"No that's not what I mean. That's not all there is to it, there's…" Latias sensed a bunch of thoughts piling on top of each other in his mind, fighting over which would be said first before he banished them all. "Forget it. I'm going upstairs. Do something productive, and clear my head. I didn't mean to tear down your old friend." Michael turned and stomped up the stairs, out of sight.

After his departure, her desire to flee had itself fled. Now alone in the living room, Latias tried to collect herself. Michael had dug up so many of her memories she didn't want to face. He was not wrong in his assessment, and the path her previous connection had taken towards its end she struggled with, when she allowed herself to think about it. From the many times Clayton blocked her out of his mind to his final, incomplete, and indecipherable thought, living with him after his stroke was difficult. But Michael had cut right to the heart of it, stripping the trappings – and the context – away. Now he saw Clayton as a despicable man, and Latias wasn't entirely sure how she'd show him otherwise.

The fact that the two men who shaped her life didn't agree on her, wouldn't have seen eye to eye, was the distressing heart of the matter. Her existence had been a continuous sequence of events; Clayton leaves her here, she watches his home and carries out his wish, Michael moves in, she befriends him and her life will resume. Now, though, the man she had here thought the man responsible for putting her here was wrong. Her continuity was broken, and she was left questioning why she had done all this. She had to wonder what she had left.

Even without a clear past or future, she had the present, the current moment. In that moment, she had a connection to a man. And always, she had the ability to sense and intimate knowledge of emotion. What could it tell her?

Latias recalled the conversation they had about her lack of a name. He felt negatively about Clayton then too, but he had given her a reason. To him, it represented a matter of respect, he wanted to give her what she was due. He was angry for her sake, because he felt until now she was owed but denied. Above her, his emotions painted a storm of disillusionment and irritation, and she could hear deeper layers of his mind shouting into gusts of the abstract and imaginary. Like then, his outrage now emerged as an expression of the care and concern he had for her.

He felt negatively about her history because he felt positively about her now. If he cared about her, he was worth holding onto. That was something she could hold on to herself, and something she could work with. She could still reconcile the man she had and the man she has.

She slowly ascended the stairs, following Michael's roiling emotional beacon to the computer room, stopping outside its open door. Flufftail sat inside, and saw her approach, letting out some muted mixture of a whine and a bark.

" _You can come in, I shut it down,"_ Michael subvocalized to her. She couldn't confirm his statement, this room was long enough that from its doorway she couldn't see either corner, Instead, she arranged feathers on each arm to a mirrored surface, and used it to peer around the door frame. To her left, the corner-poles that she knew acted as the machine's eyes, ears, and claws no longer stood, resting face-down. To her right, most of the equipment in the rack that controlled Michael's system showed no life, only a single panel lit and working. His grand machine was incapacitated.

" _He really did care about me, you know,"_ Latias tried to insert into the middle of his mental tempest as she closed the distance. _"At the end, just didn't really show it. He devoted much time and effort to me. To my safety and security. He wouldn't have if he didn't love me."_

Michael didn't respond, though half-formed arguments drifted on currents of indignation to the top of his mind. He continued working on the bracer-gadget in front of him, with his back to her. She took the silence as a sign to continue.

" _Our connection was rough towards the end. But he'd always respond positively to Anne. So I took her face full-time. I had many happy years with him prior. He wasn't a bad man, I regret nothing. In the end, I was with him."_

In his mind, she caught him equating 'in the end' with the moment of Clayton's death, rather than what she had intended. A question started forming around it, but through his mental tempest he instead filed it away deeper. Afterwards, for a single instant, his unformed arguments aligned and his mind crystallized. "He still used you, even before you surrendered yourself." His final two words sounded heavy and acidic.

" _It was my fault. When I first practiced-"_

Michael finally turned around to interrupt her. "No, that's not your fault. Nothing about his treatment of you was. And I refuse to follow suit. I'm not going to make you play my dead wife." After staring at her a moment, he turned back to his work.

The dark, roiling clouds in his mind wouldn't release him. Latias felt the need to do something to help, but wasn't sure what. Eventually, she placed her head on his shoulder against his neck, as much to let him know she was still there as to watch him work.

"Is he the one who made you afraid of being caught?" Michael finally broke the silence

" _No. I was scared of all humans. He showed I only needed to fear some. Towards the end, he wanted me free. Wanted me to interact with more people. But I was always afraid, I still am."_

"Because you don't want to be a slave."

" _Accurate."_

"What if I could make it so you can't be caught?" Latias never thought such a thing was possible, besides already being owned by someone. Michael continued in her silence. "I have an idea, but I can't make any promises yet. Either way, I want to help you move on."

" _That would be very kind of you. Thank you. I don't know how I'd repay you."_

"Don't. And especially, don't feel some obligation to patch the holes in my love life. Leave that crap behind you. Just be yourself."

" _I'll be Latias,"_ she replied, though she no longer knew what Latias should be to him. _"But someone needs to patch the holes in your love life, if not me. Tomorrow, get your Anne."_

"I will." After a pause, "I never answered your question, fully. I chose this place because Mara always wanted a home on this island. Even if she wasn't around anymore, I could do that for her. But I'm terrible at handyman shit like plumbing and carpentry. And now I found a project where I can look forward, instead of back. One thing you were right about before; she would scold me for being stuck in the past if it made me miserable. We can work on both at the same time, but if you want to repay me, let me do this."

" _I will."_

The storm in his mind was finally receding, and Latias didn't want to risk its return, but…

" _Those holes that need patching. No obligation, but of my own free will?"_

Michael ceased his work mid-command. No sooner did she detect a huge shift in his thought process, he filled her window to his deeper mind with static, a wall of rehearsed mental gibberish. He wasn't truly blocking her out, but it served its purpose as an obscurant. His emotions were still accessible, but so many of them overlapped she couldn't tell which was which, and all were buried under a heavy blanket of forced composure.

"We'll see, if we get there."

Latias picked her head off his shoulder, afraid she'd offended him. He couldn't maintain his defense against her for long, but once she'd regained full access nothing was left to tell her why he'd done so, and his mind was now perfectly calm. She didn't want to leave him quite yet, though, so settled down beside him at a distance she felt polite, and watched him work.

* * *

"I know you're there. Mind telling me why?"

Latias maintained her invisibility despite Michael's discovery. She looked back at him from the front of his dinghy. _"It's fun up here when you go flat out!"_

He frowned from behind the short control panel, and his eyes found her in the most general sense. "Alright, I'll give you that. But I meant why you are here, with me?" The wind created by their swift passage muffled his words.

Wasn't it obvious? _"I'm coming with you."_

A noticeable wave of irritation washed out from him. "You weren't invited."

 _"You can't keep me home. She won't keep me from you."_

Michael looked back to the distance ahead. _"So this is why people keep their pokémon stored,"_ he mumbled, inaudibly but easily carrying through their link.

 _"I heard that!"_

"I don't care." He sighed as Latias felt some deeper mental activity, like he was sorting something out in his head. "Just stay invisible, alright? Showing up with Anne would raise questions. You can come along for now." He emphasized his final two words.

Latias snorted and turned to face forward again. _"This is very fun though. Very different than flying over the water."_

"I'm not even going full throttle."

 _"Why not?"_

"No need to risk it, it's not very safe. A tiny boat like this going thirty knots would probably throw you right off the front the first time we hit even a small wave. The bay's protected water, but it's not exactly glass."

After she thought about the problem a moment, she responded, _"Stop the boat."_

"Why, something wrong?"

 _"Just do it. I want to show you something."_

Slowly the dinghy shed speed, eventually dropping back into the water rather than gliding over it. Latias focused on the water in front of them, recalling another of the storm-taming powers Clayton's borrowed tutor-box had taught her. With some careful adjustments of the water's surface, a large path before them smoothed out to complete stillness.

"That's pretty damn incredible," Michael said after he finally found his tongue.

 _"Playing with the sea isn't as fun as lightning. It's still a nice way to pass the time! Now can you show me full throttle?"_

"I guess I could try. I'd still hold on if I were you; steering gets finicky in a boat this small at that speed."

Raising her body out of the little depression in the front of the dinghy, Latias settled on the padded platform just behind the bow's rim, grabbing the handrails on either side. Once more the boat's nose tilted up as Michael supplied power, leveling out again as the force pushed it out fully and the dinghy rode atop the water's surface. This time, however, the tiny craft kept accelerating.

Though she kept part of her attention focused on keeping the water ahead of them still, she still immensely enjoyed the exhilarating experience. Instead of gliding as it did before, the boat seemed to be in a constant state of skipping across the water, jumping between the perturbations created when she released her control of the water too soon. The sensation was breathtaking, even literally when she encountered a hard impact or two.

Their rapid pace delivered them to the town that much quicker, Latias' perception of time's passage further reduced by her amusement. Despite her efforts maintaining a smooth path, Michael slowed them down once they found themselves among the sparse number of boats at the edge of the mooring field. Latias abandoned her efforts and slumped back into the forward footwell. She spent the rest of their approach peering over the gunwales at the many different varieties of vessels they passed.

 _"I'll stay invisible like you asked,"_ she said as she drifted out of the boat while Michael tied it to the dock. _"But I'm not leaving. I can help give you the tour!"_

 _"Yeah, alright, fine."_ Michael replied silently. He stood after completing his task and walked towards town at a brisk pace. _"No further though. I can't force you but I'd like to request you not hang around watching us eat."_

 _"I'll probably feed myself. It's been a couple days anyway."_

She watched Michael's almost trip over a hitch in his step at her comment. _"What! Days?"_ His voice came across so loud she wondered how close he'd been to saying it aloud. She sent back a laugh.

 _"You humans eat constantly, it's so strange. I eat twice a week, though I've gone longer. Also after every major exertion. Last time was after our abortive boat trip."_

 _"Gone longer without food? What, are you a dragon as well?"_

 _"I suppose."_

 _"Sparkles could hurt you pretty bad, tread lightly around her."_ Concern and pride intermingled in his mind, a mixture eluding her attempts to source. She would have to avoid the blue fox's wrath in the future, though she trusted Michael to intervene should something happen.

 _"I can't even get her to notice me."_

 _"I wouldn't worry about it. Sometimes I think she lives in her own world."_

As far as Latias was concerned, information like typing was only useful as human battle-knowledge, their complex system of classifications mostly eluding her. Some was self-evident; she knew her emotion-reading ability was very rare among pokemon, and that contributed to her nature as a Psychic-type. The rest remained mystifying.

 _"What does being a dragon mean anyway? Why does it matter? I thought that was battling stuff, you weren't interested."_

 _"I picked up a lot from the medical and trainer support teams in the pokemon center. When you work in an environment like that, it filters down. A lot of dragons have some sort of gorge-fast eating habit where they could go a week or more without food. It doesn't really matter if you are or not, just an interesting curiosity"_

They turned down the street Tide Street Café occupied. Though muted by walls and distance, Latias could tell it was packed with the late-morning crowd. _"I think I'll stay outside," she sent as she gained altitude, coming to a stop above the building. "I'll listen in."_

 _"I don't think it'll be long,"_ he replied mentally. He didn't have to voice his displeasure at the prospect of her using his senses, his emotions broadcast that message plainly enough.

As she settled to the rooftop, Instead of just his hearing, she settled into all five of his senses, immersing herself in the environment of the shop he navigated. Delicious scents filled the air inside, hinting at treats even she couldn't deny, despite disliking most human food. Michael surveyed the occupants as he walked to the counter, and Latias matched them to emotional signatures beneath her. Constant murmurs of a dozen quiet conversations added atmosphere, but didn't drown out Michael's greeting once he reached the register.

"Sam?" Cathy called to the kitchen behind her. "I'm out. Rush is ending, should be smooth sailing from here." An unformed affirmative returned, but Cathy hadn't waited, immediately sidling through the half-door between the counter and the wall. She faced Michael with a big smile. "Let's see how we're going to do this."

"You're the boss."

"First, how'd you get here? Do you have a way to get around?" Cathy asked.

"Came by the water," Michael said. "Walked from the docks."

"In that case, we could pop over downtown just to grab a moped for you, or you can take the backseat on mine. Up to you."

He didn't immediately reply, drawing Latias' curiosity. Half-formed reservations swam about in his mind while he considered the question, reluctance dominating his emotions. Eventually, he answered, "I guess I can stick with you."

"Great! We won't have to waste any time in the tourist trap then. Place is big enough as it is." She turned to face an aerial photo of the island set into the counter. "I'm not going to take you everywhere, obviously, but there's a lot off the beaten paths here that's worth taking note of. Now then," she turned back to face him after vaguely indicating a whole two-thirds of the island, one of the most useless gestures Latias had ever seen executed, "second question: Do you like seafood?"

"I'm a pretty big fan of seafood," Michael said with a laugh.

Cathy grinned. "That's all I needed to know."

The reservations Latias picked up from Michael only increased once outside, where he was handed a helmet. _"What's wrong?"_ Latias finally asked.

 _"I haven't been in a land vehicle in a couple years,"_ Michael subvocalized while he adjusted the helmet's chin strap. _"I still can't trust cars. Maybe this little thing will be better, though."_

 _"I can hold onto you,"_ Latias ventured. _"I'd be able to protect you if something happens."_

A flare of indignation was quickly supplanted by honest consideration in his mind. _"As long as you don't affect the ride; she might notice the weight. Actually, I'd appreciate it a lot. Thanks."_

"Are you alright?" Cathy asked. Concern played across her face as she stared at him.

"Yeah I'm fine. Why?"

"You looked spaced out there. Staring off to the distance or unfocused or whatever." She gave him a short laugh, "I was worried you were traumatized by scooters or something."

"Nah nothing like that. Don't worry about me," Michael said as he sat on the seat. Cathy took the driver's position. She looked down to key the ignition just in time to miss him jump as Latias grabbed his shoulders.

 _"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you!"_

 _"No worries,"_ came his silent response. _"I don't know how your levitation works. Is she going to feel some sort of force against the rear?"_

Latias thought about the problem for a moment as she positioned herself over a plate extending off the back of the moped's body. _"I don't know, did you just feel a change?"_

 _"Nope,"_ he sent as the moped roared to life.

"Hold on to me," Cathy said as she rolled the machine out of its parking shed. "Just don't get too handsy."

From her pseudo-perch on the back of the moped, Latias had little trouble staying in place as Cathy turned towards the undeveloped regions of the island and maneuvered through the turns. Floating a foot above the rear plate, she moved perfectly in sync with the little vehicle, swaying only when it banked, tilting when it did. Her abilities exempted her from gravity; Michael's shifting in its grip during these same maneuvers felt very strange.

Their first stop wasn't too far away. Latias recognized it as part of the park complex that also abutted Manisees' Pokémon Center. She preferred this place over many other areas of land on the island, but not the portions of it so close to town: Often, like now, trainers and their pokémon occupied these spaces, which kept her away. As she saw Cathy's enthusiasm become buried under irritation, she wondered if the woman felt the same.

"This is one of the island's many protected areas of land, though the only one fully developed as a park." Michael moved to get off the moped, but Cathy quickly added, "Oh we're not stopping here now. Maybe another time. Let's keep moving."

Confusion registered in Michael's mind as he mounted up again. "Why not?" The resumed wind carried the question to Latias' ears, and apparently away from Cathy's, as she didn't answer. He asked again, louder.

"We don't need to be hassled by trainers," Cathy called back.

"You're not fond of them either, huh?" Latias was afraid for a moment Michael's 'either' referred to her, before she remembered the negative connotations that rode on the word in his mind the previous day.

"No!" Cathy's voice once more filtered back through the breeze. "If they want to kill themselves with their little engines of destruction, they can do it far away from me!" Umbrage simmered beneath Michael's emotional makeup. Upon closer examination, Latias found two slightly different types, for two very different targets. A little thrill sprouted from the prospect Cathy had already managed to diminish herself in his eyes.

 _"There's more than just that section to this park,"_ Latias sent him as they transitioned from asphalt to a packed dirt road. _"We actually just entered it. The center of the island is one big park. It wraps around the main section of town."_ Michael didn't respond, but some part of his mind registered this as an interesting fact, enough to satisfy her.

The pair of humans and their covert passenger darted off towards the center of the island, where a small, low plateau marked its highest natural point. Many artificial structures, strange-looking to Latias' eyes, augmented this elevation claim. To her relief, Cathy stopped the moped at the base of an access road.

"From here you can get to the small airport and the satellite center. Besides the ferries, all our connections to the outside world sit up there. We're not going to go up, but this is one of the roads you can reach them from," Cathy said.

 _"Weird-looking buildings, tiny planes, headaches. It's a miserable place. I think the island would improve with it gone,"_ Latias sent as they turned down another road, heading west.

 _"A lot of people here rely on those buildings. Do you even know what a large plane looks like?"_ Michael replied silently.

After a pause, she sent back, _"Just what others have said about them."_

 _"This little place is nothing. You should be grateful it's as small as it is."_

Latias fidgeted behind him and looked ahead to where they were traveling. _"We're probably going to Manisees Lighthouse. Not many interesting things on the western side. Not where we're heading. I think she's drawing this out. Probably just to spend time with you."_

 _"You mean the same reason you're here?"_

That she might share a motivation with Cathy Latias refused to acknowledge. She pushed herself against Michael's back and laid her head over his shoulder instead. No matter what he might say to compare them, Latias could still have this physical proximity, and give a guarantee of protection far greater than a mere helmet, neither of which that woman could claim.

Once they arrived at the lighthouse, Cathy's anxiety spiked again. There were trainers with pokemon here too, but they were a good distance away from them to the south, and this time Cathy stopped to dismount. "This is Manisees Lighthouse, the only lighthouse on the island. Stretch your legs a bit. When we hit the town I don't plan on stopping anywhere long. Unless some place catches your attention, that is."

Despite biting back at her about her comments, Latias could hear Michael mentally wondering if he should test Cathy's choice of location. "What's so important about this place?"

"The town holds a lot of gatherings here. It's also another of the island's parks. If you come to town by the water I guess you'd be interested in lighthouses anyway, right?"

 _"The town holds only two gatherings here yearly,"_ Latias sent Michael as soon as Cathy stopped talking. _"I think you might be interested in only one. Maybe neither."_

"Right," Michael responded aloud, to which of them Latias wasn't sure. "It's worth the break to walk around at least."

The three of them moved towards the lone structure on the point, situated atop a series of bluffs much like Michael and Latias' home. When they got close, Cathy launched into a long explanation about the history of the building.

 _"Do you find any of this interesting?"_ Latias asked Michael while the woman rambled.

 _"Kinda,"_ he subvocalized back

 _"I could tell you much more than she. I lived here after all."_

 _"I don't doubt you can."_

"Mike?" Cathy stood with one foot on the steps leading to the lighthouse's porch. "You okay?"

"Yeah, what's wrong?"

"You were staring off into space again. Is something bothering you? We could do this another day if you want."

"No, don't worry about me. I'm fine. Continue?"

That Michael requested her to continue her inane babble irritated Latias, and she didn't respond until they had returned to the moped. As the three piled back on, she couldn't hold back any longer.

 _"I told you it wasn't important."_

 _"Lay off,"_ Michael mentally replied. _"At least it was somewhat interesting."_

 _"She's a historian's daughter. She's going to give a lesson about every stop."_

 _"Good thing I like history then, isn't it?"_

If it's history he wanted, history she could provide. Once back in town, their tour became a rapid series of starts and stops. Latias continued to pitch in her own brand of commentary often, stopping only momentarily when she felt Michael starting to get annoyed. The trio made their way through the outer districts of town, avoiding the tourist areas, eventually crossing the island again and turning south. None of it was new to Latias, and she reminded Michael of this fact often.

* * *

Michael sighed in relief when he caught a whiff of cooked fish from the remote building their moped approached. This was the end of the dueling narrations of his island tour, then, and a chance to fill a stomach unsatisfied by a quick stop-and-go lunch. The promised restaurant had become his light at the end of the tunnel; the tour ended up being educational but boring, as Latias had warned, though he didn't dare admit such to her for fear of validating her constant tedious butting-in. He had well enough of these two females spouting inane facts about knick-knack shops and century-old houses and any of a seemingly infinite number of tiny ponds in an attempt to impress him. At this point he just wanted to go home, but if this meal was as good as promised, it'd at least help justify this whole ordeal.

First, he had to dislodge his hanger-on, who was currently demonstrating that phrase quite literally. _"Alright, I know you're going to say I can't make you leave,"_ Michael sent Latias as he shrugged off her grip on his shoulders to dismount, _"but I'd really appreciate it if you didn't hang around. It'd just make this all the more awkward for me, it's bad enough you're going to hear everything I say."_

As he walked towards the restaurant's front door, a vague sense of something withdrawing filtered into his mind, like a wave drawing back out to sea. _"I could use your senses. I could be just as present as you. What is wrong with just sticking around then?"_

 _"Please don't. No riding my senses. It's not that I want to keep things from you, I'll just have enough on my mind as it is. Thinking about you hanging around or tuning in is just going to make that worse."_

Michael reached around Cathy to open the door for her, then followed her inside. _"Fine. I don't like the taste of your human food anyway,"_ Latias replied while he took in the restaurant's atmosphere. _"I'll go have some seafood of my own."_ Michael didn't bother replying to her, just wishing she'd leave already.

Right off the bat, Michael had to give the restaurant some credit; establishments that tried for a nautical theme to their décor like this rarely got it right as this place did. Absent was an obvious "buoys and gills" pun on the bathroom signs, and present was a surprisingly consistent port-and-starboard dichotomy between the bar and the main dining room, red lamps leading to the former and green to the latter. Omnipresent fishing nets were eschewed in favor of a sail-like canvas partitioning different sections of the restaurant that, if the block-and-tackle near each one served any function besides appearances, could be lifted to change the layout. Many pictures of nautical life hung from the walls, but not a single piece of faux driftwood could be found. Michael was warming up to the place already; anywhere that acknowledged there was more to life on the water than salty career trawling and conveniently ignored rather than celebrated the ever-lurking nuisance of lobster pods and Wingull was good in his books.

Despite the restaurant appearing fairly full, he and Cathy were immediately led to a table. Michael had expected a menu thinner than the one he received. While looking through its ample selection, he found himself tempted to get turf rather than surf, just to be contrary and push back on Cathy's ceaseless rambling about every little detail of the island.

"…But there's really no reason to come here for anything besides fish," she insisted, completing some thought he hadn't listened to. Michael absentmindedly nodded his head while looking over a selection of sandwiches, none of which contained meat. When their waitress arrived, however, he caved and ordered as Cathy proscribed. He could only hope it was as good as Cathy claimed, and that good food would lead to a good mood.

"So, what'd you think of the island?" Cathy asked as soon as the waitress hurried off.

"Pretty quiet away from downtown," Michael said. Cathy didn't look satisfied with his answer. "I like quiet. Definitely a plus," he continued. "I didn't expect it from a place that you said relied so heavily on tourism."

"I think we've found a nice balance here," Cathy said, "but if you like quiet, you picked the best spot. Nothing happens out there." Michael couldn't help but think about the entire book her own mother had written proving otherwise, sitting on his desk in his bedroom, but kept silent. Maybe he could hand it over to her when he returned home, so Nola could have it back. He'd already learned what he wanted from it.

Cathy waited some time for any acknowledgement from him, but he couldn't bring himself to care too much. Blessed silence shattered when she decided to try another tack. "So, about your pokémon. What do you do with them?"

This subject, at least, he was willing to talk about. "I'd originally thought they could guard the house when I first got them, but really they're just family. I don't really do anything with them besides take care of them, and in a way they take care of me."

Twisting her face into an expression halfway between curiosity and contempt, Cathy replied, "How do they do that? I thought they'd just eat your food and go back to their pokéballs. Er, do you keep them in their pokéballs?"

"Absolutely not, they deserve better than that. Besides, I don't know what I'd do with myself in an empty house. I like the quiet, but total silence would drive me crazy."

"You know, another human could provide that for you." Michael met her gaze with a level stare, wondering if being this on-point was normal on a first date. It'd been too long since he played on this field.

When their waitress arrived with their drinks, she broke and looked down to the table. "What are pokémon good for besides battling, anyway?"

His impulse to write the whole night off returned in force as he tried to decide which of the myriad of ways he could answer her question. Even after selecting one, he let the silence drag a few moments longer for effect. "Companionship. They're my friends. They put enough activity in my life to shake things up, but are unobtrusive enough I can focus on things when I need to. Honestly I'd recommend everyone live with a pokémon, just for the experience."

"I tried that once," Cathy responded acidly. "It didn't turn out too well."

"What happened?" he asked in a tone more moderate than he felt. A vicious part of him cheered the registered hit. A more compassionate part of him fought the impulse that he knew fed off his temper, but the compassionate part was weakened from a day of attrition.

"My father was a trainer, but he called himself a researcher first. Kept all sorts of brutes. Dumb as rocks, probably because they literally came from rocks. Resurrected straight out of an archeology book by what had to be a mad scientist, because nobody else would want to bring such abominations into the world. The two of 'em constantly stalked around the house with their blade-arms, ready to slice open anything they touched. The big bulky one could just crush me, but I was always more scared of the shorter one. Too thin to look alive, covered with too many spikes to be safe from any angle."

Michael heard the clinging of ice in her glass as she stirred it. "And I was right all along, not that this is the right place to show you scars. My mom gave him a choice; us or the pokémon. He said they were his life's work as well as his friends, and while he didn't want to put us at risk, he didn't want to sacrifice his career. So he left. He visited often but eventually stopped. I don't know what happened to him and I long since stopped caring. Probably got gutted by his own monsters somewhere, and good riddance."

Michael contemplated his cola-and-alcohol concoction in the ensuing silence, wondering if she needed it more than him. "Sorry to hear about it. Can't say I never heard stories. Some pokémon aren't very kid-friendly." Images of when he first tried to train Flufftail flashed through his mind, an event that fortunately never escalated that far.

"I think trainers are insane," she replied, "something about pokémon drives people crazy." She looked up at him then, even managing a thin smile. "You seem alright though. I'm surprised, considering what my mom told me was your old job."

Michael waved his hand vaguely. "I stayed in the back poking at computers all day." He took a sip of his drink, fighting a grimace at its obnoxious sweetness but savoring the slight burn against his throat. "I think you're right about some trainers at least though. I just don't understand it. Guy I used to work with had a Starmie, seemed like he spent every waking moment he wasn't working in fighting circuits with it. Took battling with it almost as seriously as he took his job. Good guy, but talking to him about pokémon was like talking to a foreigner."

"See, you're not crazy after all, you get it," Cathy said, with a much warmer smile. "What happened to him?"

"Don't know, we fell out of touch when I left my last job. Actually talked with him a bit on the phone a couple days ago when I was trying to get ahold of the guy managing this island's storage system. I didn't really get the chance to find out how he got there; it was late, I was tired, and he was terse. When I got ahold of Bill the next day someone else managed the call."

Their food was delivered shortly after, and Michael dug in gratefully. With that one shared topic played out, awkward silence filled the air more often than spoken words. Several lesser subjects briefly came up, transient and ephemeral, but none ever stuck. It was wrong, he knew on some level, and they were supposed to be using this time to get to know each other. He just couldn't convince himself he was interested, and was more concerned with finally eating his fill and establishing a buzz with the help of a couple refills.

They finished their meals and paid faster than it took them to get their food. Michael thanked his prior alcohol consumption; he wasn't nearly as anxious about being on the road at night as he thought he would be, and only in fleeting spurts found himself missing Latias' comforting grip and promise of safety.

His concerns of the night resurfaced. How was he supposed to make something work with a woman who was afraid of pokémon? Was there even anything to make work? Perched on the back of her moped, practically sitting on top of her back, put him closer to any woman than he'd been in several years. She wasn't unattractive, possessed a measure of intelligence, and was capable enough to run her family's small business. But whether it was alcohol-fueled apathy, weariness after the day's long tug-of-war, or simple lack of chemistry, he couldn't bring himself to care.

He was still turning it over in his head when they pulled up to his house. He handed Cathy his turquoise-colored helmet after he dismounted. "Thanks for the ride back."

"Can I see the place?" Cathy asked, still seated. "I want to see what you've done with it."

" _No,"_ sounded a voice in his head he'd almost managed to forget. He tamped down on surging anger fast enough he hoped it didn't show on his face. How long had she been listening in, against his request? The day's earlier irritation – at both of them – rushed back and hit him full-force.

"Sorry, it's not exactly in presentable condition. Still a lot of work to do." He tried to amplify the next sentence in his mind, "Another time though, definitely." A stick in both their eyes, for his day's trouble. Politely.

They exchanged goodbyes, but Michael's mind was already on his next battle. The sight of Flufftail rushing over to greet his entry momentarily pushed back on his anger, but not enough. _"I'm home, but you knew that already,"_ he sent Latias as he held himself back from slamming the front door closed. _"How long have you been in my head?"_

" _About a week, not that it seems to matter."_

Latias' flippant response only made his mood worse. He felt like he was talking to one of his kids in a petulant mood, not to someone who claimed she was almost two decades older than him. _"You know damn well that's not what I meant."_ He switched to his real voice after he ascended the stairs with Flufftail in tow, opening the study door to find Latias moping atop her ersatz bedding. "What is with you today? Inviting yourself along for the trip, and getting upset when I finally tell you off?"

" _If she isn't replacing me, what's wrong? If she's around you, I can be too."_ Her refusal to look him in the eye, staring out the balcony door, cemented his opinion of her behavior.

"Totally different. This wasn't something for you to take part in. I asked you to stay home today."

 _"I wanted to go, and you gave no reason."_

"That I asked should be reason enough!" he exclaimed as Flufftail slipped past him and sat in a corner of the room. "What if I don't want to be stalked by some invisible dragon all day? Isn't hearing everything I say enough for you?"

 _"I helped you though. I comforted and protected you."_

"Yeah, sure, thanks. That didn't give you license to throw an attitude when you overstayed your generously extended welcome. As you can see, I made it home without your services."

 _"You sound a lot like the trainers you hate."_ Latias finally turned to face him, floating up to meet his gaze at eye-level. _"I'm to be called and dismissed at your leisure? Just another pokemon to you?"_

"A pokemon is exactly what you are! I thought I made that clear enough yesterday, but you're still having some trouble with that." His earlier conversation with Cathy came to mind. What to do about pokémon who weren't good for companionship?

 _"You told me to be me, so I am. I am your partner in this, an equal. Not yours to command or dictate terms to. I go where I want and stay where I choose."_

An emotional calm before the storm came over him. "I give you that. I try to ask, not command. I give you space and consideration. Yet today I wanted some time alone with another human fucking being, and you deny me that most basic privacy." Dark clouds loomed on the horizon, "As for where you stay, you are here at my pleasure. If I want you gone, you will go."

"How do you plan to make me?"

Shooing off a dragon? Should be easy enough. Michael turned halfway in the door and shouted down the hall. "Spark?"

By the time he looked back, his view of Latias' expression – one even he could read as astonished, let that put her in her place – was partially obstructed by nine whirling cream-colored tails. A sense of fear came over him before he even fully realized Flufftail had positioned himself between him and Latias.

The fox's ready stance faced him, rather than his draconic adversary.

He suppressed his first instinct to simply run; despite the Ninetales history, Michael could tell from the fox's face that he wasn't overtaken by his anger, merely something he'd learned to interpret as vulpine disappointment. Still, its agitation was plain, and with his pokéball at a dozen meters behind him through a closed door, retreat was probably prudent. He muttered something to try and save face, though not even he was sure what came out, before turning out into the hallway and closing the study door firmly behind him.

It took him several moments to gather enough of his wits to realize he just effectively locked Flufftail in the study with Latias, but even now aware he wasn't in any danger from his own pokémon, the solid door between them comforted him. Cathy's earlier comments about family-unfriendly pokémon returned to him as he slowly descended the stairs. He'd forgotten one of his own time-bomb's triggers. One of the oldest; no pokémon battles, not even implied.

Though the small, quick hit of adrenaline blew away the haze of mild intoxication, it left nothing in its own wake. Now in the living room, Michael dropped onto the old couch, its missing – stolen – cushions replaced by some from his boat. He'd give Flufftail some time to cool off. The Ninetales would inevitably come to silently scold him sooner or later.

He was flipping through an internet video service on his television when Latias' voice finally returned to his mind. _"You have your study back."_

Michael blinked a couple times, trying to process this. He subvocalized back, _"What do you mean?"_

" _I left. Went back to where I lived before. You know where."_

He did know where, he'd found it several nights prior, while she slept. A measure of malice-fueled vindication surfaced in his mind. _"I do."_ A possibility occurred to him. _"Are you closing this? We done?"_

After a moment, an unexpected reply. _"If you want."_

A shadow dropped down across the window to his right, drawing his attention towards the back yard and the night beyond. Flufftail's face appeared in the window a moment later, and Michael got up to let him in the back door as he responded, _"Not really."_ He tried to figure out where Latias was going with this unexpected contrition. _"Do you want to?"_

" _Despite your threat,"_ a vindictive note sounded in her mental voice, _"I still want to help you. I still have an obligation."_

An obligation to who, him or Clayton? _"You owe me nothing and him less. What do you really want?"_

" _I want to be the one to make you happy."_

Michael's train of thought derailed, scattering mental railcars over too wide an area to track. He returned to a problem he never satisfactorily resolved for himself the day before, when she commented that she might, in the future, wish to enter a mode of relationship with him that was improper at best. He'd quickly pushed it out of his mind then, forcing it away by repeating lines of nonsense code to himself like a backwards form of meditation. Obviously it wasn't something he could shove off forever, but a clear solution still eluded him.

When he returned to the here-and-now, he found Flufftail obstructing his view of his television. His silent councilor always made his quiet displeasure known, and though Michael was terrible at reading his own pokémon, Flufftail was patient enough. His owner making missteps was not one of his few triggers. Cathy would probably decide he really was crazy after all if he ever told her that his therapist was a fox with anger-management issues, and he might even agree with her.

"Look, I'm sorry. That was hasty of me. I won't throw your sister at her."

Flufftail didn't move from where he sat atop the coffee table, aside from several tails slowly curling and uncurling around his legs.

Michael regarded him, trying to determine the Ninetales' silent intent. "Been awhile since I saw you make a friend. I thought you'd be jealous of her."

Flufftail snorted and dipped his head slightly, but still remained put.

"No? You're more secure in your position than she is then, I guess."

The Ninetales' head tilted back up quickly, and Michael thought he saw a gleam in his eyes.

What he wouldn't give to be able to connect to Flufftail's mind like he could Latias. It'd be a much more productive connection, that's for sure, and save them all a lot of time. In the back of his mind, he wondered where Latias was, since he knew she could hear him go through this whole routine. "What about it? Security, or your position?" Flufftail laid down on the table, tapping his snout on it, and Michael sighed in frustration with both hands over his face. "That doesn't help me at all!"

After several unproductive moments, Flufftail jumped down off the table and up onto the couch, laying down once more at Michael's side. Michael patted the fox on his shoulder, ignoring the fact the pokémon had laid on top of his television remote. "You know, I was never a hit with the ladies. Now I have two who want my attention, and I don't know what to make of them. I think you finally have some competition for the most confusing creature in my life."


	7. Shadows and Dreams

Jolted awake by the distinct feeling of her Protect bubble rupturing, Latias stared up at the body just inches above her in a panic. Michael bridged over her, both hands supporting him against the cave wall. She could smell tangy sweat and a hint of blood as he pushed off and resumed a kneeling position, breathing hard from some unknown exertion.

"Breaking that was a little more difficult than I thought," he said.

" _Why are you here?"_ Her disorientation cleared only slowly.

"You were having a nightmare, I think." As he stood up he winced, and the scant traces of moonlight that reached inside the cave provided more than enough illumination for Latias to make out scrapes across his arms.

" _You're hurt!"_

"I fell a couple times trying to get here. That hardened sand isn't as sturdy as I thought, and finding this place in the dark with a working disguise was difficult."

Latias suppressed the urge to fuss over him. It was difficult to resist getting hands-on to check his injuries, but she'd been working on holding back such impulses over the last several days.

Michael fidgeted in the silence. "Whatever was going through your head, you put up a shield around yourself. I had to get through it, somehow. Fists were the obvious solution, sorry about that."

She blinked more mental haze away, still trying to wrap her head around his unexpected closeness. _"How did you know?"_

"Well," he looked to the ground and wiped his forehead, sweat visible even in the low light, "you were sort of screaming at me. Not even words, or even really sounds. Honestly, it was pretty scary. Do you remember anything from it?"

" _I never remember my dreams. Sorry for disturbing you with them."_ She closed her eyes and tried to relax back into her bedding. Her emotion-sense told her Michael hadn't moved, and wasn't planning to.

"If you wouldn't mind, would you come back with me? I don't really want to leave you here, and I could use some help."

Her ears perked up, followed shortly by her head. _"I… of course! Thank you for your concern."_

"Don't worry about it. Come on, it's a little chilly out here."

The pair exited onto the beach, turning towards the small path that led around to the house's hill. With a clear view of moon and stars in a cloudless sky, Latias judged it to be several hours after midnight. _"I hope I didn't wake you."_

"Nah, I've been working for a while now. Tomorrow we're going to transfer some of the Pokémon Center's pokémon into the system as a test and emergency backup. I need to make sure everything is set. Really, it's not that much later a night than usual for me."

" _You have plans with Cathy tomorrow too."_ Cathy, who can accompany him to a Pokémon Center without blowing some sort of cover.

"Yeah. Hasn't been on my mind much. I need to finish this tonight."

Latias said nothing more on that matter as they approached the front door, where Flufftail met them on the porch. Relief spread out from the fox, for both their sake. Latias wondered at him. Ever since she moved out, every appearance of hers brought the Ninetales some strange new joy. It seemed to her like Michael was just fine with her staying away, but his four-legged confidant wanted her to stay close, further undermining her resolve.

She paused in the doorway to the storage system room. Two fears warred in her mind; that of the machine, and of Michael telling her to leave if she requested he disable it. This battle of anxieties paralyzed her long enough for Michael to solve the problem himself. "You can come in now."

Drifting inside, she could see the scanner-poles once more laying on the ground. _"Thank you."_

"Figured that didn't change, you haven't given me a lot of time to help you with it." He bent over to pick up a tangled pile of cables by the last pole he laid down. "If you could work on untangling these, that'd be a huge help."

Latias took the bundle wordlessly and followed him behind a large rack full of bulky enclosed trays. She placed her task down beside it as he took position on the floor, with a small pile of already neatened cables next to him. As she started trying to untangle her much larger assortment, she watched him plug his cables between the trays and a large bar running down one side of the rack.

The pair worked in silence for some time as Michael worked through his pile and Latias learned to work around the clumsiness of her own claws. She watched as Michael's emotions gradually shifted from expectant to curious to uneasy, all concerning her. Does he grow tired of her presence even after he specifically requested it? At least when they worked on the house together he tolerated her.

"Why are you helping me?" he eventually asked, not looking away from his work.

" _You asked."_ Latias carefully filtered her frustration at the question out of her response.

"Why did you agree though? You could find yourself in one if these if something happens to you."

The metallic rack in front of her reflected a rainbow of faint colors when she bristled at his hypothetical. _"I hope you would free me."_

Silence resumed as he pieced together how he'd go about such a thing in his mind. Apparently he wasn't willing to just yank out whatever pokéball she'd be trapped in and release her.

In the corner of the room near the computer rack, Flufftail warmed himself beside the massive cooling system's outflow vent, basking in a couple different varieties of contentment. The Ninetales didn't seem to mind the inside of a pokéball, the few times she had seen him emerge from one. Despite never wanting to experience it first-hand, she wondered what it was like.

Michael followed her gaze, and she felt his relief as he found something else to talk about. "Did I ever tell you how I got him?"

" _No."_

"I was working a late shift in the Center when Rangers brought in almost a dozen pokémon. Turns out they got a tip from the storage system admin, and raided a guy's house who had been breeding and training pokémon for some underground play-for-keeps ring. He was one of them. I already had the paperwork filled out, since I was thinking of getting a guard pokémon, and I decided I'd adopt one of that group. They were all in such bad shape I hoped I could give one a good home as soon as possible."

Flufftail met Latias' gaze when he looked up at them, apparently aware he became the subject of discussion. Another layer of satisfaction appeared in his emotions.

" _I hope he's alright."_

"Well, when I tried training him I found he gets a little… off. And he's always so scared after, like he made a terrible mistake by following my instructions. I have no idea what his last owner did to him, but it left a mark. I stopped trying to train him after the first couple times and finding out what he knew. I figured he could take care of himself if he ever had to, and I didn't want to make it worse. I got Sparkles not long after, and trained her up as a guardian instead."

" _Is that a reason you want to do this?"_ Latias looked back to Michael. When he looked back at her with confusion, she tossed her head towards the rack they were assembling.

"I guess. It'd be nice to pay that back, you know? I could look for the same signs, help out other pokémon who need it. I'd probably have taken the job anyway, just for something to do, but it'd be a nice opportunity."

With her lack of response, conversation once more ceased. She neared the bottom of her pile now, cable-lengths stacked neatly in the space between her and Michael. He had already plugged in a dozen rows of the boxy trays, and was slowing as he worked through the last remaining rows on top. Eventually he sighed, put down the cable he was about to plug in, and looked at her.

"Look, I don't need to be able to read emotions to see you're upset. For the whole first week you were chatty and active. Now you hardly speak to me. Will you tell me what's wrong?"

She paused a moment, weighing how his anger would impact his quality of sleep. _"You should go to bed, it's late and you have a busy day tomorrow. Show me what you're doing, I can finish this for you."_

His building frustration inspired a sense of resignation; she would get her lecture anyway. Instead, it boiled away into resignation of his own. "How can I say no, when that's the most you've said to me all day? Come over here, this part is pretty easy."

She drifted close to him, enjoying the proximity but afraid to touch him. If she made physical contact, she felt her will to continue staying distant would vanish. A distraction appeared promptly; he brought up a mental diagram of the rack before them, and Latias had to flip back and forth between it and watching his actions as he indicated the connectors that their many short cables linked. "The only thing we need to do is plug everything in. I finished the rest of the job already, I just put this off because it's rather boring."

" _It looks simple enough. Boring isn't a problem, as long as you dream up something entertaining for me."_

She immediately regretted her comment when he turned to look at her. His emotions showed no sign of anger at her remark, but a good deal of confusion shot through his mild apathy to the current task, and a welcoming of her closeness. The latter gave her hope; maybe her greater distance lately was already having a positive effect. The growing silence itself only made her more uneasy, despite being able to clearly see how he felt.

Eventually he broke it. "Uh, alright, I guess. I'll check on this in the morning before I head out. Have a good night, Latias. I hope your nightmare doesn't return."

After he left the room, Latias let out a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. Dropping back down to floor-level, she grabbed several of the short cables and floated back up to the top of the rack. The connectors all looked the same, negating any obvious need to plug them in a certain way. She found the plugs slid in easy after the pins were lined up, and that a collar around the rim rotated to lock it in place. The staggered positioning of the sockets on the bars running up the sides allowed her easy access throughout the endeavor. The process was even simpler than she had expected.

Her emotional awareness told her Flufftail hadn't followed Michael to bed, a first in the time she'd known the pair. Instead, the fox moved across the room to watch her work, sitting roughly where she had hovered herself while untangling cords. Despite his complete lack of any emotion she could interpret as negative from any perspective, his presence still unnerved her. He represented the embodiment of everything she didn't understand about Michael.

After finishing her task, she soundlessly acknowledged Flufftail, and drifted out of the house. Even before she returned to her cave she knew sleep would not come to her soon. Being so totally awakened allowed the following period of activity to erase any remaining drowsiness. As she settled back onto her makeshift bed, she considered Michael's final request.

She had told him if they had problems they should talk it over. When presented with an opportunity tonight, she failed to do so. She'd have to make it right.

Despite their distance the past several days, their bond had not weakened, only slowed in its development. It was plenty wide enough for her to enter his dreams, and as the first time he slept while she was wide awake, now was the perfect opportunity. The worst case scenario was that she'd tire herself out and sleep soundly again. He wouldn't object to her presence if she was there to answer his question, would he?

Her self-justification thus secured, she settled into her bed and looked toward Michael's mind. Already he slept soundly, and she had expected nothing less from someone who worked himself so hard so consistently. Though he wasn't yet dreaming, she could gently coax his mind halfway between waking and snoozing.

Around her presence in his mind sprang a likeness of his machine room. Latias huffed to herself, half in irritation and half in amusement; she should have guessed he'd dream about work too. She regarded Michael's inert form standing in the middle of the room for a bit before she sent his mind a suggestion for new surroundings. Instead of the house's bedroom, however, she found herself in his boat's stateroom. Michael's form now sat atop the bed, unresponsive.

While she waited for his consciousness to occupy its dream-self, she pushed another suggestion into his head, and her body changed into that of Anne's. Within dreams she no longer wore an illusion, but a body that interacted with her surroundings as a human form would, complete with sensory feedback. Latias leaned against a wall and performed some stretches, feeling how Michael's mind provided sensations differently than Clayton's had. She felt a minor pang of disappointment when it could no better supply the feeling of running her hands through her long hair than the last, fingers providing a tactile response but scalp eerily numb.

Michael's head suddenly snapped around, startling her out of her adjustment routine when his consciousness finally occupied the space provided. "Why do you look like Anne?"

Dream sessions almost always started with a question, but that was one Latias had not expected. "I enjoy using this form here," she spoke naturally using her own voice.

"On the boat?" Michael looked around his stateroom.

"In dreams."

His eyes met hers again, "Are you you?" The dream-space provided the unspoken components of the awkward question as if he had said them plainly, "[If this is a dream, are you the real Latias or just part of my imagination?]"

"I'm real, though I'm not sure you'd receive any other response to that question even if I wasn't. I created a dream for the two of us in your head. You're still sleeping."

"Are you?" Michael asked as he stood from the bed.

"I'm awake. This wouldn't work if I wasn't."

"Huh." His one-word reply carried a great deal of additional information, "[That's disappointing and a little depressing, I can see that causing difficulties in the future.]"

His acceptance of the concept to the point of thinking ahead brought Latias a great deal of comfort. "Don't worry about it, we'll work something out if we get there."

"I'll take your word for it," he replied. "Your voice isn't coming from everywhere anymore."

"You noticed that?" She gave him an astonished look.

"Was I not supposed to? It's pretty obvious."

"No, but Clayton never did until I asked him about it." She had no idea what that meant. Nevertheless, before she could stop it, an optimistic part of her squirreled it away within a nugget of hope.

"So how does this work?" He opened the door to the short hallway, "Are you controlling my mind or something?"

"I wouldn't let you ask that question if I was. I just sent some recommendations to your sleeping brain. You're doing most of the work here, not me."

As if to prove her point, parts of the vessel's interior popped into existence as he navigated the hallway and walked up the stairs to the lounge. "We should have tried this sooner." The dream-context provided, "[Maybe it'd let you be less distant than you have been lately.]"

"That's why I'm here." Though her emotion-sense didn't work within this space, she still felt through their bond his relief and dismay, both stinging her. "You asked me a question before you went to bed. I should have answered."

"Before you told me to go to bed. Is it about Cathy? [Or the first date, and my reaction to how you acted?]"

Latias fidgeted in place while he took a seat on the lounge's L-shaped couch, only moving when he beckoned her over. Though she sat down next to him, she couldn't meet his questioning stare. "A little bit," she started hesitantly. "You told me I should act like I was just a pokémon. I come when called, I leave after I've helped. You allow me freedom so I allow you distance."

"I hope you haven't felt forced to help."

"No, I wanted to. I still want to. You said I had no obligation to you." She finally met his gaze as she smiled at her own joke before she made it, "I feel obligated to feel no obligation."

A smile of his own rewarded her. "Good! [I thought you were upset with me, but I was only seeing how you're working this out.] We'll have you living a normal life in no time." A whole spectrum of different meanings lay beneath his statement, from thankfulness that she was not angry at him, to concern she took his meaning too far.

Many were dangerous temptations, so she decided to respond only to his words. "I just need to adjust, wean myself off. Before, I hoped I could get my old life back, just with someone new. Now I know that's not how it's done. I need to get used to not being in the top spot, that's for Cathy."

A train of thought within his mind rapidly built steam during her final sentence, only to be derailed at her conclusion. "Not right away. There's a whole process to it, give it time. [I'm fucking it up again anyway.]"

The unspoken part of his statement paid her back in full, radically shifting her own thoughts from her intended reply. "Again?"

Latias felt the dream shift before she realized the boat had suddenly listed twenty degrees. The windows beside and behind her showed they now sat in the middle of an ocean, where even the gentlest swells could tax the vessel's stabilizers. She sent another suggestion to Michael's mind, and the water replaced itself with the much calmer surface of Manisees Bay, though the island itself was nowhere to be found in the night.

Michael looked around, noticing the change only when she made her alteration. "Did you put us here?"

"I have no idea where 'here' is."

"Strange. [I wasn't planning on taking you here.]"

She could feel his mood darkening, and gathered herself to take greater control of the dream at a moment's notice. Emotional extremes wreaked havoc on dreamscapes, and if this turned into a nightmare, she wanted to bail them out as quickly as possible. "Michael, what is this place? To me it's just the middle of the ocean. You brought us here."

"It can't be the ocean, it's too calm," he said, standing and walking towards the pilothouse stairs.

"I did that, I didn't like the motion. What's so special about the ocean?"

When she felt his emotions darken further, she picked up her pace, but when she reached the pilothouse entrance Michael already stood at the top of the steps. "Yeah, this is the place. [I don't like this place and I'm not ready to tell you about this place.]"

Less a suggestion this time than a command, Latias overwrote their location with another. The dreamscape did not transition smoothly after such forceful influence, and the pair found themselves immediately moved to their prior seats. The cabin slowly brightened to match the sunlight outside as her eyes adjusted to a light level shift that never happened, or the light itself realized it was supposed to be there.

Michael looked at her with concern, without any sign of the disorientation she felt. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I just pushed a little too hard there. I guess 'where were we' can wait until another time."

"We're near ho –" his lagging confusion finally caught up when he looked behind him and saw Manisees Island. "…Yeah. It can wait."

"What's wrong between you and Cathy? You've been visiting the café every morning, I thought it was already well on the way."

"To a solid relationship? Not that fast. This stuff doesn't exactly happen overnight," he said, finally looking back from the island. His expression, still spooked, provided an amusing flavor to the unspoken component of his reply, "[I guess you really haven't been in my mind much lately.]"

"Why don't you take her out on a boat trip, like you did me? You suggested it to help our bond, maybe it can help your bond with her too?" A twisted, uneasy confidence crept over her. As long as she supported the one he chose to be his true partner, she had to be fulfilling her role correctly, right?

"You're not going to hang over us this time, are you?"

"No!" Latias said, more forcefully than she had intended.

"Alright. I'll think about it. [This isn't really something I was planning on discussing with you. I need to keep you and it separated as far as possible.]"

Latias wished he were this candid in person. "I'll go then. I wanted to answer your earlier question, and it was nice to be back in one of these. Good night, Michael."

"Wait, before you go, am I going to remember this?"

"I can make sure you remember it perfectly, if you want."

"Please do!" Michael's face lit up. "It was nice being here with you."

She smiled back at him, feeling a surge of elation. A small degree of guilt followed. If she was trying to separate herself from him, she shouldn't get excited just because he enjoyed her company. She withdrew from his dream-space rather than reply. After tagging it to be shifted to his long-term memory, she gently pushed his consciousness under the twilight zone, back into the deep sleep she pulled it from. The dream world collapsed, and she returned to her own senses.

Despite being technically awake, during dream excursions her body always fell into a trance that lifted only slowly. Her senses had to adjust back to their usual feedback. Though now without a human's ultra-clear sense of touch, her own body's additional padding of feathers at least made her bedding even comfier. She focused on that feeling and relaxed, turning her attention inward as her perception of the outside world cleared.

Michael was right yet again; she should have done that much earlier. It felt good to actually wear a human form instead of a mere illusion of one, allowing her to enjoy an exercise she normally disliked. Once everything settled down, maybe Michael could help her make her own for use in his dreams, something Clayton refused.

More importantly, she felt she did a good job proving to him she could accept that Cathy would be a bigger part of his life than she. She was finally on the same page as him about where they stood, something that fresh retrospect showed should have happened sooner. She still regretted their situation, but she'd have to get over the distance eventually. He seemed satisfied just knowing she was working on it.

The moon's reflection off the water informed her not much time had passed, but she felt far more tired than when she returned. Again immersing herself in the plushy sensations of her composite furniture, she drifted off into a sleep far more restful than she had emerged.

* * *

"Come on in, let me just grab this package here." Michael collected the small box by the door he just pushed open. Cathy moved past him inside the house, and when he followed her inside, he deposited the package atop the bannister. He already knew what was inside, far different than the electronics components that had been arriving the last couple days. Its contents threatened to distract him from his guest.

"I replaced all the furniture over the past few days, and finished most of the major repairs." Michael turned his attention to his living room and its current occupant. "It'll be a really nice, comfy place when it's all fixed and dressed up."

"Nothing a few coats of paint can't fix, yeah," Cathy replied. "A lot of people thought this was going to become someone's summer home. It's nice to see it go to someone who'll look after it full-time."

 _Not that I was the first,_ he said within his own head. He still couldn't hear the signature echo of Latias' mind on the other side. She must still be asleep, he didn't put it past her to lie about the amount of effort the previous night took on her part. Aloud, he responded, "I hope I can give it the care it deserves. From what I've heard from Nola and others, I have some pretty big shoes to fill."

"You'll do just fine," Cathy said, smiling at him. "For all the odd-jobs Mr. Georges did around town, he never accomplished something as big as what you're taking on." Her smile faded a bit then. "Maybe in the future you won't have to mix work and personal time?"

Michael looked up at the ceiling, to where the computer system was on the floor above. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that. There's just timetables involved and…" he looked at the package he just received.

Cathy too looked at the box. "Is that more work?"

"No it's… yeah. Yeah, more work. Get to a milestone on one thing and another's dropped on your doorstep, every time."

"I can get a tour of the place another time, then. Don't get lost in it, alright? I've been there, its bad news." Cathy put on another smile, but Michael could tell this one was forced.

"Hey before you go, let's settle that right now. I should be totally free the day after tomorrow. I could take you out on the boat for the day, you can show me the island from the water?"

Her smile warmed. "That sounds nice, sure. I'll see you tomorrow morning, same time?"

"Same time."

"I can always count on you to ruin my coffee, at least. Maybe this time you'll catch that guy who's been asking about your work." She stepped out the door and closed it halfway. "Just make sure nothing comes up, okay? I'd really like another day just to ourselves." She finished closing the door behind her, and he heard her footsteps as she descended the porch steps.

Michael didn't wait to hear her moped's engine starting, grabbing the box immediately and taking the stairs two at a time. He initially hoped to take advantage of Latias' slumber by showing Cathy around, but the pokémon's lack of mental presence was just as important for this next project. He didn't want her finding out before he had finished it.

Hopefully it'd resolve the recent distance between them, not that said distance had prevented him from dwelling on her. Last night allayed his fears that she'd leave, but something still felt very off about the whole thing. Either Latias wasn't telling him everything, or he was overlooking some aspect of her behavior.

In some ways the separation had been a blessing; he got a lot of work done both on the storage system and around the house, with varying degrees of her involvement. He'd been to the café many times unmolested, and last night he learned Latias hadn't even been reading any deeper than his surface thoughts on the matter. Still, he hoped he only had to worry about one of his new connections, instead of potentially losing both.

He sat back after removing the smaller boxes from within, each different than the last. Machines were simple. He knew exactly how he'd go about the project now in front of him, even though he hadn't even seen exactly what he was working with. People were more complicated. He'd hoped Cathy would understand his work habits, owning a business herself, but he still felt like he'd been screwing up every get-together they've had. Pokémon were absolute enigmas. Trying to read his Ninetales was bad enough, and instead of Latias' more human-like communication aiding him, it just seemed to make her even more confusing. If Mara were here, she'd be able to tell him what he was missing. Then again, if Mara were still here, Latias wouldn't have to stay hidden. He wouldn't have to keep his new mind-mate from the woman who desired his affections.

Of course, what would really happen if Mara were here was a long lecture on how he's letting his work get in the way of his friends and family. Work for a friend was okay though, wasn't it?

He examined the silver pocket watch that one of the smaller boxes produced. The timepiece itself was irreparably damaged, but he cared little for it. The shell mattered most, and it looked to be just big enough to fit the circuitry he needed. Another box produced a brand-new Ultra Ball. He used the tip of his knife to gently pry the black and yellow cover from the upper frame, exposing the components within. Analyzing them, he determined he could transplant the whole set without having to dismantle any. He judged he could complete this project in just two or three days, even accounting for all the other demands on his time, as long as Latias stayed asleep and allowed him to work in secret.

No time like the present to start it.


	8. It Is Their Nature

Latias shot into the air when the Furret within the day-care pen looked her way. The small pokémon scanned its surroundings with a mixture of suspicion and confusion. Even though Latias was invisible and far above it, she still held her breath until it returned to its prior frolicking about the water's edge.

Approaching wild pokémon, the few times she did during her island patrols, never caused her this much grief. The day-care facility's expansive enclosure was similar to the local environs, and the pokémon playing within seemed little different from their feral cousins, save a few more exotic species. Still, she knew they belonged to trainers, and she couldn't shake the fear that fact carried. She also took great pains to stay well away from the tall poles that dotted the space, forming a grid. By now she could readily recognize the purpose of such designs, and hoped none cast their invisible eyes her way as she hung just outside the area.

What did pokémon do when their trainers weren't around, how did it change the way they acted, and how did they act compared to those still free? They did a better job of staying in one place than their wild counterparts; that much she knew and lamented when she earlier tried to compare two specimens in real-time by flying rapidly back and forth. But besides a more subdued and carefree demeanor, she couldn't tell any obvious differences. Perhaps Clayton had not been entirely truthful with her about the nature of captured pokémon. If these pokémon were slaves they were very content ones, and rarely did a negative emotion about their trainers cross their mind besides a yearning to return to them.

Upon hitting an investigative wall once again, Latias found her attention returning to those matters she tried to distract herself from.

 _"Step onto the swim platform first, and remember to keep a hand on the rail. You could sit down first and get in that way if you want, it'd probably be easier,"_ Michael's voice came through their bond. Latias knew Michael and Cathy were anchored just off the southern shore, and planning to take his dinghy into the beach. She decided taking a break from her study might give her a fresh perspective on returning, and it couldn't hurt to follow the pair at a distance for only a short time.

Spotting from the air proved no trouble, his vessel the only boat anchored to the south close enough to the beach to matter. At first she planned to smooth the waters for their approach, but while flying over decided that the action would be too obvious, and Michael would know she was watching them. She resigned herself to stay over the patches of dense vegetation that clogged all but a few passages up the southern hills, drifting over the obstructing shrubs as she tracked their progress to shore.

The stretch of shoreline was deserted but for two minds. Latias regarded them with some wariness, but this quickly gave way to alarm when they entered the range of her emotion-sense. A man looking to sea through a monocular overflowed with loathing, and she could glean from his mind its target even before she looked to confirm he was watching Michael's approach. The man's ire burned with purpose; Michael had taken something from him, something he valued highly. Something he meant to take back, or avenge. Beside him, a Starmie stood in its own strange fashion, three points to the ground. Emotionally, it was almost invisible beside its trainer, calm and waiting by a toppled dirt bike.

When she got close enough to get a good look at him, she realized she recognized him. It was Steven, the man from the call Michael placed a week prior.

Steven's mind was so chaotic overpowering hate quickly made her jittery. An attack was likely imminent, she couldn't rule out a desire to physically harm Michael or Cathy behind this vengeance of his. She couldn't warn Michael without him knowing she was nearby, and she couldn't generate an illusion to obscure the man's sight without physically placing herself in front of him, vulnerable to the Starmie's attacks. She looked above, and an unsullied blue expanse greeted her eyes. Even on a cloudless day, she could call lightning to distract them.

Michael would be here by the time she had to act. Her participation would be obvious to him, but by then he'd know he was danger; she'd have to trust at that point he'd understand her involvement. She wasn't going to lose her bond-mate again if she could do anything to stop it.

She drifted a short distance towards the ascending path, and looked back to the beach. Michael was stomping on some object in the sand as Cathy extracted herself from his dinghy. _"If you mean the waves carrying it off, it's tied up good. The only thing we'll have to worry about is if the tide pushes it further up the beach,"_ he said, presumably answering a question Cathy asked. After a short delay, his voice came through again. _"I know so. Where're we headed?"_

Latias watched Cathy shield her face from the sun and look across the low ridges, eventually pointing towards where Steven and Latias waited. Soon after, Michael's voice came through again, _"What about them?"_ After a moment Cathy started moving closer, and Michael soon followed her. Latias panicked. Why did they have to come over here, when there were so many other ways up? The man put his monocular inside a pocket, and tapped his Starmie on its top arm. The pokémon telekinetically dragged itself through the sandy dirt a short distance ahead and to the side of him, resettling itself closer to where the path emerged. Latias started building a charge in the ground beneath it and the sky above.

When Michael reached the top, his mind lit up with recognition. "Steven! I didn't know you were in town." Concern quickly replaced the initial burst of excitement when he recognized how angry Steven was. "What's wrong?"

Latias noticed an alien mind probing around the edges of Michael's natural mental wall. She started pulling together the electrical charges faster while still trying to hear Steven's reply. "I'm not going to let you cost me a third job," he was saying. "I'm through–"

Starmie's mental presence reared back to strike, and Latias tripped the charges she'd drawn. From a clear sky descended a crack of lightning, crashing into Starmie and knocking it on its back while badly startling the two men. She saw its mind briefly blank from the electrical blast, and she used the few seconds the lapse granted to dart towards Michael and latch into his back. _"I'm here!"_ She quickly sent him.

Michael could only let out a confused "What?" before Starmie had gathered it's wits again. Latias raised a golden-green Protect bubble around them moments before a psychic spear smashed into the shadow the bubble cast around their mental space. Within the near-perfect silence of the bubble, he seemed to gather his wits faster. "What's going on, what are you doing?"

 _"They mean to hurt you!"_ she sent as she watched a rainbow shimmer flash across Starmie's body, its momentarily dimmed core once more glowing bright. When the bubble dropped, Latias could see that Steven's mind had cleared beneath his sudden confusion. A killing intent simmered there, as she expected of someone in the act, along with anger that his Starmie had encountered difficulties completing its task.

Before Michael could reply, Latias filled the edges of his mind with noise, a barrier of static to blunt any assault that might breach his natural defenses. Through it she could no longer accurately read his thoughts, but she saw confusion shoot through his emotions as the act lightly affected his thinking and senses. She'd apologize to him later; it was nothing compared to what Starmie might do should it get through.

As if sensing the extra protection from outside, Starmie went back to prodding instead of trying to pierce. Latias started to accumulate charges for another lightning strike as she felt it slide across Michael's mind, over the bond they shared, and to hers. As she felt it discover the hole in her mind she never closed, where it once connected to Clayton.

Another Protect bubble popped into existence, only to fail immediately under Starmie's ensuing assault, weakened coming so soon after Latias' previous deployment. Instead she once more swung her electrical hammer, another bolt from the blue slamming into the water-type and causing it to withdraw its presence. It shimmered again, restoring its health, while Latias assembled a dense wall of noise to temporarily plug the gap. Meanwhile, Michael finally reacted, bringing his arm up and hastily punching commands into some strange gadget there.

Starmie renewed its assault against Latias as soon as the bubble again fell. It sawed through her wall of noise with a repeating signal, eroding the barrier into easily-penetrable regularity. Alien influence finally broke through, and this time many thought-vectors followed behind it, strange messages seeking purchase and resonance within her head to build a beachhead of foreign ideas. She tried uprooting them wherever they found purchase, but, Starmie was trained for psychic battle while she was not, and sparing enough effort to defend Michael's mind as well sapped her speed and strength.

Ignoring the outside world for the inner, she wasn't sure how much time she bought or how much she could continue to buy. She couldn't quickly close the hole, but she could still change the other side of the scale balance. Defending her connection with Michael would be easier than defending her whole mind. Across only that small cross-section, she could create a perfect defense.

She created another wall of noise and shoved it against the assault. Starmie immediately began to degrade it, but Latias was already withdrawing and building a bastion around only the most essential parts of her mind. She placed it before her bond to her charge, devoting all the energy she could muster to defend it and him both. Once Starmie's presence returned it blasted through the now-undefended reaches of her mind, but when it moved for its ultimate target it ran into her small and impenetrable fortress holding the bridge. She watched it slam its mental attacks against the walls again and again, feeling a distant shadow of calm satisfaction as it couldn't make a mark.

After a period of time that felt both far too short and far too long, the fruitless assault ceased. Latias spared a measure of focus to find and reassemble her emotion sense. A new mental signature had joined the group, familiar though she could not remember who it belonged to. It radiated confidence, and her bond-partner's mind blazed resolutely. They were making a fight of it then, and were sure they could stop the Starmie and whoever was with it. She could detect no other mental presence around her or her bond-partner any longer, and withdrew her noise shroud from her bond-partner's mind to allow them focus.

She knew that she lay somewhere on the ground, without any illusion to hide her, but it seemed like a distant concern. She won. She successfully withstood her attacker, protecting her bond-partner. She couldn't save her previous – she couldn't remember how many she had prior, just that she'd never been able to save them, a fact which echoed uncomfortably across scattered fragments of memories and nuggets of foreign knowledge left behind – but she saved this one, and had thus redeemed herself. Now that they had it under control, her part was finished, and she could slip away. She'd need time to put back together what was left behind.

* * *

"Spark, Freeze-dry!" Michael ordered. Whatever noise had distracted Steven, he'd take advantage of it to get the opening move. Sparkles launched herself at the Starmie, slamming it to the ground on its back and pinning it with her forepaws. Whatever the Starmie had been doing to him failed, and the buzzing that claimed all his senses ceased, leaving his head cleared. He now realized he had felt Latias fall off his back around the time he finally managed to call out Sparkles. He turned and crouched, his leg dislodging one of her wings where it had laid against him, but was unsure what he could do beside shield her.

Michael shifted Latias's inert body and positioned himself between her and the battle, and returned his attention to it. Sparkles had her jaw open wide over Starmie's core. A heavy gust of frigid air spread from her mouth, drawing after it tendrils of frost and hairline fractures as the rime sucked out all moisture from the pinned water-type. Steven shouted and started moving towards the pair to separate them. Sparkles' head snapped up and she unleashed a blue beam at Steven, drawing a wall of ice crystals across the ground between them.

Starmie took quick advantage of her halted assault to spin its paled body on its back to throw the fox off. As Sparkles regained her footing, Starmie unleashed an extraordinarily brilliant blast of light from its core, drawing a bright white beam across her body. The blue Ninetales collapsed back to the ground unmoving, small tendrils of smoke rising from several singed tufts of fur.

It took three screen-taps to recall Sparkles, giving Michael just enough time to regret what he was about to do. Another tap-and-drag called forth a second bolt of light, and Flufftail emerged. Even from some distance behind him, Michael could see the fox tense up, claimed by training older than his ownership. Identifying his target – its color restored and frost vanished – he acted before Michael had a chance to figure out what he'd command.

At the tip of each tail grew an orb that burned with a sickening purple light. A flick of each tip sent the orbs streaking at Starmie, and despite the water-type's best attempts to dodge, each struck home. Scorch marks appeared all across its frame where the orbs hit, and what thin cracks remained glowed dully.

No longer dedicated to evasion, Starmie anchored itself and spun its rear section, trails of vapor forming a ring between its tips just before it unleashed a powerful blast of steaming water. The blast caught Flufftail square in the face. Michael had to shield his face from traces of scalding spray that didn't find its mark, and when the deluge concluded he couldn't make out his Ninetales for all the steam left behind. His resolve rallied when he saw an eerie purple glow emanated from within the cloud, matching a sickly light shining through Starmie's cracked form.

A flash of this light dissipated the cloud in an instant, revealing a soaked but still standing Flufftail. The fox wore a cruel grin, as if he was mocking his opponent's weak attempt. A purple ring of light, supported by straight tails like a wheel and its spokes, flashed once more. Starmie's body erupted into an inferno, one that quickly shifted through the spectrum from the angry reds and yellows of normal fire, through the blue of an ultra-hot flame, further into a supernatural dark blaze that not only burnt body but melted mind and scorched soul.

The glow of Starmie's core hadn't fully extinguished before Flufftail turned his attention towards Steven, now hiding behind the wall of ice he had been attempting to surmount. A single blast of flame shattered it as Michael brought up his bracer once more. In the time it took him to execute the three presses, Flufftail had gathered himself and pounced at a panicking Steven. The enraged fox almost made it level with the man's throat before dissolving into a burst of light.

For several moments the two men stared at each other, Steven shaking off his fright and Michael trying to piece together his wits after narrowly averting a bloody mess. "Get the fuck out of here," he brought himself to warn, "before I let him back out on you." A growing part of him wanted to make good on the threat right away, though he managed to restrain the urge while his foe quickly recalled his fallen pokémon and ran off.

Silence dominated the area, giving the area a disquieting peace following the battle. Michael retraced his steps a short distance, searching for his other charge, and found Cathy cowering at the base of a sandy berm. At least she had the presence of mind to find cover during the fight. "He's gone," he told her simply, and started back up the path at a jog.

 _"Latias?"_ he subvocalized. The name didn't carry the tell-tale echo of an open channel, but it wasn't quite normal; he couldn't tell if she was in some state he hadn't yet seen or if it was just hopeful thinking. He had no idea how to tell if she was okay, if she had just overexerted herself again somehow or if something more sinister happened. He fussed about her limbs and head, trying to find where he could take a pulse under her thick feathery coat. Worry gnawed at his thoughts and scattered his efforts.

He had his head near the ground over Latias' face, trying to hear any signs of breathing, when Cathy returned to view. He straightened as she caught sight of him. She looked like she would join him until she saw Latias. "What the fuck was that?"

"Apparently we were attacked, not just a normal pokémon battle." Michael swore to himself, if she was about to go off on–

"Battles are never normal!" she exclaimed. "They're symptoms of the insanity pokémon infect you with!"

"Look, I know you don't like–"

"That's just fucking it! You know I can't stand them, yet I have to share a boat with your two freak-foxes, and escape them only to be attacked by some mutant starfish. Then after it's all over, you're sitting here caring for some… thing that just fell out of the sky. Instead of, I don't know, running or calling the police!"

"She's a friend," he replied, emphasizing the last word, "and she's hurt."

"What am I?"

"In perfect health, from the looks of it. Capable enough of hiking up that hill and scolding me. I'm sorry you can't handle the fact this pokémon saved us both." A controlled deployment of sarcasm kept his rising temper in check. She didn't deserve all of his building anger, but she was reserving herself a good slice of it.

"Just call the cops, they can take it to the Center or whatever. We need to get out of here!"

"What's the law going to care? Just a pokémon battle in the wild, as far as they know. I'm more worried what he's going to do next." He looked down at Latias. He knew Pokémon Centers took care of wild pokémon at times and released them back into the wilderness, but he had come to understand Latias was a special case. He wasn't sure what they'd do to her, let alone the fact it was probably the last thing she wanted. "I can't take her in. It's complicated. I'm not going to report it, not right away."

Cathy stared at him in disbelief, and her next sentence came out very slowly and clearly as if Michael had trouble understanding. "He just tried to kill you."

"But he didn't succeed, and he's not going to stop there." Michael met her stare. "I'm going to get ready for when he tries something else."

"I was wrong before. You are crazy. You're fucking insane. Give a man a pokémon and he loses his fucking mind, nobody's exempt." She threw her hands in the air. "I'm done. We're done. This is over, I can't take this. Have fun with your big dead bird, I'm going to handle this how a rational human would." Michael watched her storm off towards the north. Part of him understood she referred to more than just this battle scene, but he couldn't bring himself to care. If this was how it ended, her fear of pokémon was a problem that solved itself.

He stared off in the direction she went, fuming. His poor mood reminded him that Flufftail needed some time to wind down himself, and he called the Ninetales back out into the open. As the fox withered and charred small clumps of wild grass, snarling at nothing in particular, Michael turned his attention back to his casualty.

He carefully scooped Latias up into his lap, both to get a closer look at her and to protect her from Flufftail's environmental depredations. A good number of feathers across her chest were marred or unseated, but he couldn't find any signs of physical injury. With her head propped up on his shoulder, he could just barely hear slow, shallow breathing. She was alive, and he couldn't see any indication she was in further danger. The sharpest edge of his fear thus blunted, he tried to focus on more productive avenues. What was he going to do next?

After further thought, he still felt his initial refusal to go to town had merit. Steven wasn't the kind of guy who gave up after hitting an obstacle, he'd come back with either more pokémon or with friends. Bringing Latias to a Pokémon Center would require him to tell this whole story, dragging the cops into it and delaying his return by hours, or possibly the night. He'd have to make do with his medical stock. In the meantime, he was convinced Steven would come at him again. His best bet would be to make sure this time he recorded their confrontation as hard evidence, even if that meant using his own home as bait.

With his rage spent, Flufftail became a totally different beast. The fox visibly shook with exhaustion and anxiety as he returned to Michael's side, his actions and the blow he took finally catching up to him. He sat next to Michael, head hung low.

"Feeling better? We'll get you patched up back on the boat." Flufftail whined and stuck his nose under one of Latias' wings, resting his head on Michael's thigh. "If you're worried about her, this wasn't your fault. You did well, I'm sorry I had to put you in that spot." He let the fox rest for a few moments, feeling his breathing with a hand on his side even while listening to Latias' next to his ear.

Only a few moments could be spared, because Michael wasn't sure how fast Steven could rally, and the trip back along the coast would already be long enough. "C'mon, now that that's out of your system, we need to get back, where I can fix you up. Make sure I don't trip over anything, alright?" He shifted Latias in his arms to allow himself to stand, and followed Flufftail back down to the shore.

Fortunately, the tide hadn't much time to shift in the short interval since they made landfall, and his dinghy remained at the water's edge. He placed Latias in the footwell of the forward compartment, and retrieved the painter and spike. He lashed the painter line through a set of forward eyelets to hold Latias down in the compartment, then placed his socks and shoes beside her. After Flufftail jumped in and settled down beside the control station, he shoved the small boat back into the surf, spinning it around and jumping in once he stood in knee-deep water. He started the engine as soon as the propeller lowered, and made best speed out to where his cruiser waited in deeper waters.

Flufftail jumped to the swim platform as soon as they came alongside. Michael followed him aboard, unlashing the painter to tie it to an aft cleat; hauling the dinghy up on the davit would take too long, and in waters this calm he had more than enough power to just tow it. Unloading Latias with wave action was a challenge but not insurmountable, and she was soon lying on the makeshift bed behind the wheel in the pilothouse, once more wearing the diagnostic collar from the boat's first aid kit. After pulling the anchor, Michael started it on the trek up the island's eastern shoreline.

The long trip gave him plenty of time to think.

He felt himself on the verge of once more losing everything, running back as fast as his engines would push him to protect what was supposed to be a fresh start. Not too long ago he retreated to this boat, and he hadn't found his way out for two years. Two weeks ago that finally changed, but now that new refuge was threatened. He established two new connections, possibilities of a new family, but he lost both when his lack of attentiveness pulled two individuals he cared about into the crossfire of a conflict he didn't even know existed.

Or did he care? Looking back so soon, he found himself untroubled by Cathy's departure. He'd been chasing what she represented, rather than her; the concept of a relationship instead of a specific person to involve himself with. Over the past few days he'd struggled to make himself see her as any more than an overeager friend, and today's collapse of that mission brought him surprisingly little grief. He blamed himself for not devoting more time to her, that maybe his distance caused his detachment. Perhaps it was merely delaying the inevitable, seeking something that wasn't there.

In the other's situation, distance came from without rather than within. Today Latias showed that she was willing to risk to protect him. Risk what he couldn't know, but her mystery condition still gnawed at him. Almost a week ago he had threatened her and pushed her away. Even still, she was willing to help him, both with his projects and his safety. So typical of him that he had something this good, but didn't know it until it was gone. Their brains were somehow fused, but in the end she was just another being held at arm's length.

All this misery was self-imposed and he had no right to feel sorry for himself, he thought. Mara had always told him that he spent too much time running and avoiding problems, ignoring them until they became overwhelming. She became a victim of this tendency, along with his kids, when his stressful marriage pushed him further into work rather than family obligations. He'd been running ever since; selling the house haunted by their memories, avoiding the type of vehicle that lead to their death, even selling the business he threw himself into after, pinning the blame on it. Everything gone but this boat, Flufftail, and Sparkles. One his final bastion, another his sanity, and the last his hope better days may come.

Better days would never come if he kept fleeing, only history repeating itself. He had to salvage what he still had and stand, unless he wanted to find himself adrift directionless again. When Steven showed up, he'd defend his new home, instead of just gather evidence. When Latias woke, he'd discuss with her how she really felt about the two of them, instead of wait for her to find out on her own. Just because his storage system was ready didn't mean he had to pull the trigger just yet, not when he could take a break to actually interact with his new hometown in some way besides a morning coffee ritual. Maybe he'd even find a woman who held his interest, instead of half-heartedly pursuing the first one to latch onto him at Latias' insistence. If he wanted new connections in his life, he couldn't just sit passively by and wait for them to come to him, especially not if he would just watch them drift away again.

Which meant now he wasn't fleeing for safety, he was moving forward towards his next battle. He wasn't sure what spurred him to fight rather than flee back there, if it was Cathy's defenselessness or Latias latched to his back taking charge, but he was now convinced it had to become just the first of many battles, literal or metaphorical.

Once they reached their personal jetty, Flufftail leapt to the dock with a line in his jaws, half-wrapping it around a cleat and struggling to lose as little ground against it as possible. Though they came in fast, Michael managed to stop the boat from simply bouncing off the dock. By the time he came ashore himself, Flufftail had made two more trips running lines to dock cleats. Michael only had to wrap a final twist in each line to secure it, something the fox couldn't do.

He looked down the pathway to the house. No angry visitors yet approached. "Stay aboard," he told Flufftail. "Watch Latias. I'll be right back." As Flufftail jumped back onto the boat and he made his way toward the house, he allowed himself some satisfaction. Giving commands and seeing them done felt like he was already accomplishing something, no matter how small.

Inside the house, he ran a mental inventory. He had enough food aboard for a couple days, an emergency provision he took whenever he left the dock, so that wasn't an issue. He pulled a couple extra revives and restores from his medicine cabinet before heading towards his workroom. He could take advantage of Latias' unconsciousness to complete his side-project.

Tossing all these supplies into a box, Michael made his way back to the boat. When he entered the lounge, Flufftail poked his head around the pilothouse door, and jumped down the split-deck to join him. Michael punched in a command to the storage controller on his wrist, and a bolt of light from a black bar above the lounge door brought a fainted Sparkles into existence on a nearby couch. One revive and full restore later, she was at strength and ready to go. Fluff got a restorative spray of his own, to heal his battle-fatigue.

"We're staying aboard, just for a little while. If they come while we sleep, it's harder to torch fiberglass than wood," he explained to them. "I'm going to put you two on rotating guard shifts. Spark, you're first; I'll let you out onto the flybridge. Come down and let me know if you see anyone coming. I'll send Fluff up to replace you when it's time." He turned to the other Ninetales. "You get yourself some rest for now. Good job back there." Michael then beckoned Sparkles over as he headed for the pilothouse. He made his way around his patient in the middle of the area, and opened the hatch in the roof on the other side. Sparkles bounded up and through to the flybridge.

He turned to Latias, laying on the pilothouse couch, its table once more dropped down to a makeshift bed. Her diagnostic collar kept cycling through different condition messages; [FNT], [SLP], and [PAR]. Michael plugged a revive capsule into the medication port on the collar, but the device refused to administer it, claiming it unnecessary. He couldn't decide whether this was a reason to hope or a reason to find a new collar.

He carefully bundled Latias in his arms once more and returned to the lounge. Flufftail dutifully backed out of the way as Michael made his way around the galley, and the Ninetales followed him to the lower deck. Once in the stateroom, he claimed the bed before Michael could put Latias down, but he crammed himself against the headboard to give the injured dragon room. After Michael finally had her settled in what he hoped was a comfortable resting position, he had to ward off the concerned fox so she could have a little space. Flufftail huffed and curled up across the bed from her.

After retrieving the box of supplies, he placed it on what small portion of the bed wasn't claimed by a pokémon. From inside, a laptop displaced Nola's book from where it sat on a desk in one corner of the room. Ultra Ball components followed, along with the remains of a silver pocket watch. If Steven found success, at least Michael could leave behind this gift to Latias, and repay her for what she'd done for him today.

* * *

Cathy had already ran halfway across the wilderness back to town before she realized Steven had probably gotten there on a bike she could have used. Her head was still spinning, trying to see from every angle what just happened. Michael turned out just like the men she'd approached before, not even a foreigner could escape the unflinching grip pokémon-madness held over Manisees Island. Another new realization struck; she could have been attacked at any time during her flight through the island's southern wilderness.

Fear and exhaustion colluded to bring her to her knees.

A shaking finger punched a number into her phone. She couldn't summon the strength to bring it to her ear, so she thumbed speaker mode on while the call tried to connect.

"Cath!" Nola's raspy voice sounded out. "How's the date going?"

"It's not, mom. I need your help. Can you pick me up?"

Despite its cigarette-induced hoarseness, Nola's voice clearly carried her concern. "Sure, what's wrong?"

"I'll tell you when you get here. Meet me at, uh…" Cathy tried to clear her mind and recall where she might be. What was the name of that street that ran along the southern edge of town? The one with the two service roads branching further south, she probably wasn't far from one of them…

"Cathy?"

"Hold on mom. Sorry, I… Trying to think."

Parkline. Parkline Road. She'd been heading straight north and passed one of the island's larger lakes, so that meant—

"Service Sixteen-C. I'll meet you there, but I don't know how far down. Just keep driving. I'll explain everything then, but I gotta go. All this tall grass is freaking me out, who knows what's behind it."

"Stay safe!" Nola called out as Cathy's thumb passed over the [END] button.

After spending a few minutes to reassemble her wits, Cathy stood once more. She looked at where the sun was in the sky and regained her sense of direction, turning northwest to meet up with the specified dirt path. Hopefully the inescapable tobacco smoke smell on her clothes would keep wild pokémon at bay. If her mother's disgusting habit had any benefit, may it aid her now.

Whether for fumes or not, she completed her journey to the end of S.16-C unmolested. Two ruts of regularly-trampled grasses gave way to a hard-packed wide dirt road. After several minutes of walking along it, Cathy spotted her mother next to one of the café's mopeds, parked off to the side of a wide circle near a sign suggesting all cars turn back there. Of course, the elderly woman had a cigarette hanging from her mouth. Cathy would tolerate the smoke for the relief the sight brought her.

"What happened to you? Where's Mike? If he hurt you, I swear I'll—"

"No! No mom, he didn't. Someone else tried, but he fought them off."

"Where is he then? Does he need help, do we need to go get him?" Cathy knew Nola's nerves were probably shot from waiting for her to show up, if she wasn't buried in a book she always had to be doing something.

"He's fine, I think. I don't know. I left him where he was. He was more concerned about his pokémon than me anyway."

"You got caught up in a pokémon battle?"

"I think the guy tried to attack us with one. Us humans. Some guy Mike knew from an old job, I don't know. We need to get to the police station to make a report, Michael chased him off but said he was going back home, that's when I left."

"Then the police is right where we'll go." Her voice trailed off as she turned towards the moped, muttering to herself more than speaking aloud. Nola turned back and handed her a sky-blue helmet, and Cathy looked at the café's logo on the front. Her home, sanity behind a 'No pokémon allowed' sign. A bastion in this monster-crazed island. She couldn't wait to get back.

"You left him over caring for his pokémon? I told you he had his two Ninetales. He seemed pretty attached to them," Nola said as she got back on the bike.

Cathy followed her on, sitting behind her. "It wasn't them. I mean, they were there, but not the one he was looking after. I think it was hidden or invisible, I only saw it afterwards, when it was knocked out."

Her mother looked back at her. "He told me he only had two, and he wasn't interested in trainer things. He didn't say anything about a third." Revelation flashed across her face, and she got that look Cathy knew meant she was chewing away at some mystery. "Can you describe it?"

"It was, uh, red and white? It had wings, I think. I don't know, it looked all weird. Almost like a plane."

After gritting her jaw, Nola turned back to face forward and keyed the ignition. Over the moped's engine starting, Cathy could hear her growl to herself, "That bastard kept it from me this whole time. Right under my nose!" She then raised her voice to call back, "Hold on tight!"

It only took forty seconds for Cathy to regret imparting a sense of urgency. Nola drove like a maniac when she felt it was important, and judging by their sheer speed, this was the most important trip she'd ever made. On the other hand, Cathy felt relieved just being here with her. Sidetracked by oddities she may sometimes get, but the old woman knew her priorities.

This strange mixture of comfort and terror lasted almost all the way into the heart of town

They stopped in front of the police station, where they'd surely be taken in for arrest should anyone learn the record time in which they'd made their journey. Cathy got off and handed her helmet back, but Nola grabbed her arm. "Are you sure you don't want me going with you?"

"I'm fine, I can handle this. Just needed to calm down. Despite your driving, I managed to."

Nola didn't laugh at the joke, concern still dominating her features. "Are you going to stay here or go home? I know they have rooms for some people if they need them."

"No, I'll be home. I don't know when, but tonight. Thanks for getting me and bringing me here, I'll call when I'm out."

"I'll have your brother whip up something nice for when you get back, end a bad day on a good note. If you don't need me with you here, I just found out I have some unfinished business to attend to."

Nola finally took the helmet and turned to drive off. The two exchanged a parting wave before Cathy turned to the station door, wondering just what business her mother was talking about. She hoped Nola wasn't about to get herself into trouble on her behalf, but that seemed the likeliest event knowing her. Cathy tried to put it out of her mind as she walked into the station.

* * *

Fourteen years. Fourteen years they'd been together, and won far more than they'd lost. But today, their most important battle, Starmie failed him.

Steven sat at a desk in his hotel room, turning the occupied Dive Ball over and over in his hands. Flash on ice, Scald on fire. It was a simple plan, and it almost worked. That basket case of a Ninetales didn't drop when he should have, and Steven didn't see the Hex coming. Why did Mike even know to run it? He was no battler, he knew nothing about competitive pokémon training. And that Ninetales was far too strong for 'guard duty'

As it had a dozen times before in his circular train of thought, his mind returned to the first pokémon Mike had out, the one he couldn't identify. Whatever it was, it was pathetic, hardly making any progress with repeated Thunders after Starmie's Recover. Ultimately, it was a non-issue; the Protect-stalling was a temporary nuisance, and the wretched thing dropped as soon as Starmie could get a swing in with Psychic. Steven didn't even have to tell it to do so. At least the thing proved itself good for something today.

He couldn't stop now. Three times in twice as many years was too tight to be a coincidence. For some reason Michael had it out for him in a big way, or maybe he was just the malicious-type of newly wealthy, who took petty vengeance on those who used to be his friends. Steven was going to run out of jobs in four regions before Michael gave up, he knew it. That man was an evil kind of creative type.

It was looking like he'd have to invest money to save money. There were those sketchy guys who always went in a group, cleaning up tournaments he was sure was rigged. He'd gotten in good with one of them after a few upset wins, maybe he'd be willing to throw a match or three for their crazy schemes in return for some help. If not, there was always cash; a hired gun is better than no gun at all.

Steven called up a number to his phone, one he'd only used to figure out where not to go on a given night of battling. It didn't take long to connect.

"Yo, Sirama. What's up?"

"Looking for some help, I think you can provide it. Want to go on a trip tomorrow, see a beautiful island, all on me?"

"Depends, what do you need done?"

Drumming his fingers on the table, Steven thought of how to make it sound as innocent as possible. "Got some guy crawling up my back about a battle, know-nothing full of bluster. I'm strong but you know I've only got one, he's got three. I need someone to even the odds so I can thrash this snob proper."

The ensuing pause ran Steven's nerves up. "I got the rest of the week open, but what's in it for me?"

"I'll give you an all-expenses-paid three-day vacation to sunny Manisees, and I could probably do a few things for you after if you need something done yourself. We can talk more when you get here."

"Send me a pre-paid round-trip ticket and we will."

"Will do, thanks man. His strongest is a Ninetales, bring something that can take heat."

"I got a pair I think will give you a good showing. I'll pack."

The phone clicked off, and Steven smiled to himself. He'd been so close, with help victory was assured. The phone replaced a folding knife in his pocket. Steven inspected the blade while idly spinning the Dive Ball on the desk's surface. He wanted Starmie to make the kill, psychic powers leaving no evidence. If the thing failed him a second time, he'd have to finish the job himself.

He stopped the spinning ball. Starmie never lost two in a row. If it did here, that couldn't be coincidence either. Enemy action. This pokémon swept entire tournaments solo, but couldn't beat three chumps who'd never fought? Maybe Starmie lost today because it was already turned against him, throwing the match just as Steven planned to in the future. He picked up the knife and held it, blade-down, over the top of the pokéball. He felt a sudden urge to drive it down right now, end the traitor's existence before it could stab him in the back.

No, he still needed it, even if just for this fight. He could always start over with a new pokémon later. He'd taken this one to greatness all on his own; he'd have no problems raising one more loyal than it.

His thoughts found a new circle within which to endlessly travel, and like the ball, once more started spinning.


	9. Family Affairs

A melodic chiming brought Michael to a poor substitute for alertness. He slapped at his laptop until it stopped. Blurry, unfocused eyes took in his surroundings as he tried to piece together how he managed to get so little sleep even his body, accustomed to such interruptions, felt like shit. They found his computer screen, and after several moments of squinting, he learned the time. Four in the morning.

He looked around his stateroom with a sense of déjà vu. He'd woken up like this at least twice prior, he thought. One pokémon presently occupied his bed, where before he swore there had been two. Ah, that was it, the last time he woke up was to let Flufftail out of the room. Now he could come back, giving Latias a second warden for a brief time.

As he trudged down the short hall to the foxes' room, everything assembled in his mind again. The fight before, Latias' condition, watching the house from the boat, a planned defense. He'd only been awakened by three-hour alarms, never a Ninetales, and they'd almost made it to morning. He tossed that over in his mind as he beckoned a similarly-drowsy Sparkles off the top bunk where she'd been napping. The bunk that used to belong to the only person who, despite her young age, could really rein Sparkles in.

"Tell Fluff to get some rest, Spark," Michael told the sky-colored Ninetales. He scratched her back during her trip out the door towards the stairs, brushing off tiny specks of frost. "We'll all have breakfast when your shift is done, but I think he and I could use a little more sleep still." A minute later, Flufftail padded around the corner to meet him. The two of them returned to his stateroom, though he knew Flufftail wouldn't stay there for long.

Latias' diagnostic collar had long since been muted, but still registered a steady pulse when Michael checked. He regarded her for a long while, studying her iridescent scale-feathers, particularly the damaged ones around the base of her neck. If he'd understood her correctly, she'd no longer be able to hide or disguise herself until they were repaired. A collar-like device, newly completed, drew his attention back to his desk; at least he'd be able to help her until then. He stepped back towards it for another three hours' snooze, but paused and reached out to grasped her claw as he had many times before. Flufftail whined while he looked on, his head resting on the bed level with Latias', as he had many times before.

This time, they got a reaction.

Her three talons half-closed around his hand, not quite latching on but enough to exert pressure. An eye fluttered halfway open. A golden iris peeked out from behind. A slit of a pupil floated lazily, taking in Flufftail's peering face before focusing on Michael. It quickly widened.

Latias launched herself into the air, only letting go of his hand halfway through her short ascent. She rammed her head against the stateroom's skylight over the bed, and Michael jumped backwards. He quickly hit the light switch and closed the door when he realized her goal, managing to lock it just before she nudged him out of the way in her quick flight over. When her stubby claws found no purchase on the mechanism, flush as it was with its mounting plate, she looked back at him with narrowed eyes. From his chair where he'd fallen, Michael crossed his arms and regarded her expression and frantic breathing.

Maybe she'd lost her voice? He reached over his laptop for his whiteboard and erased the selection of measurements off it he'd been tracking, no longer needed or of use. He handed it to her with an uncapped marker. It took her several moments to reach out and snatch it from him, and when she did, she clutched it to her chest like a lifeline.

Flufftail, now atop the bed, emitted a plaintive noise at her distressed condition. "What's wrong?" Michael finally asked what the Ninetales couldn't, in as gentle a tone as he could muster through his own slowly rising anxiety.

He saw her wings snap up in what he guessed was a flinch, and her posture relaxed. She looked down at the whiteboard, and back up at him, repeating the gesture several times. Moments later, it clattered to the hardwood floor as she launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his body and her neck around the back of his head. Michael just barely managed to get his own arms out before she hit him, hugging her as much to hold her as to change his center of gravity when the chair tipped backwards from her impact despite its weighted base. He could feel her shudder with some minor convulsion. Sobbing?

"Woah, hey, calm down now," he tried to placate her. Talking seemed to have a positive effect; he felt her relax slightly under his hands when he did. He hugged her as close as he could without further damaging marred feathers. "We're fine now, we're safe. Tell me what happened. Can you talk?" She tensed back up at the question, and he heard her emit a plaintive note.

He'd started to worry by the time she responded, her tone more thin and hollow than the voice he expected. _"I think so."_

"There's the lovely voice I remember. The voice of a lifesaver." Still holding Latias, Michael spun the chair to look at Flufftail. The Ninetales relaxed after his acknowledgement of a reply. "What's got you so worked up?"

Latias pulled her head away from him, and leaned back on her vestigial legs perched on his lap. She looked at his face from several different angles, before trying to look him in the eye. At such close distance, she had to tilt her head down for her eyes on both sides of her head to focus on him, creating an arch in her neck that he gently stroked while she gathered her wits.

" _It really is you,"_ she finally said, her voice's hollowness filling in with hints of wonder.

"Who else would it be?"

She looked down at his chest, before pushing the top of her head into it. _"I don't know. A lot of things I do know are wrong, I think."_

"What do you mean?"

" _I know you're dead."_

Michael pulled back as much as the chair's back would allow and stared down at her in disbelief. After a moment of silence, she sheepishly looked back up at him. _"But you're not."_

"Obviously." He looked back up at Flufftail, as if the fox could provide any clarity. Latias followed his gaze briefly, before turning her attention back to him.

" _I know Michael is dead, but I don't remember him dying. I know I saved my bond-mate, and that I remember. But you're Michael, and you're still my bond-mate."_ She cocked her head as she looked up at him, examining him more closely with one eye. _"You are Michael, right?"_

"Of course," he said, trying to follow her train of thought. This was quickly getting into topics outside his experience. "None of that makes any sense though. Start from the beginning. What happened to you back there?"

She stretched her long neck back out and draped it over his shoulder. _"Starmie tried to attack your mind. I protected you, but then it tried to get to you through me. I didn't think I could protect both of us at once, so I just protected you."_

Michael once more gathered her in a gentle yet firm hug. "You didn't have to do that, you know."

" _Yes I did,"_ her suddenly stern tone dissipated her voice's residual thinness. _"Nobody else could. I couldn't save either of my partners before. I mean, one of them. Clayton. I couldn't save Clayton, but I wasn't going to lose you."_

"But now you're all messed up in the head." The comment drew another whine from Flufftail, who now stood at the edge of the bed, neck outstretched to try and reach them with his nose. Michael reached out with one hand to scratch the fox's head as he continued, "Can you fix it? Is there any way I can help?"

" _That's what I was doing. Still doing, kind of, but mostly done I think. I could hear you though, in a distant sort of way, and I didn't want you to worry anymore. So I woke up."_

"And you didn't even know who I was when you did?"

" _It all hits you again when you're putting your memories together. I remembered Clayton's death, but that's easier; I also remembered all the time I've spent without him since. I was with you just before, and I thought you were dead too, and I mourned. But you're right here when I woke up."_ She exhaled loudly in something Michael couldn't determine was a snort or a short laugh. _"You thought I was a ghost when we first met. I don't see how you could have been so calm. Seeing a ghost is scary!"_

"Heh, I imagine it's a little different when it's someone you knew."

" _But there's stuff in there I don't think belongs. Maybe things Starmie put in there to get me to give up, but I'd already stopped listening. Like I know you're right here, even though something's telling me you can't be."_ Latias' tone shifted slightly, _"And that recently we've been distant."_

Michael moved the hand occupying Flufftail to the back of her neck when she lifted her head during the ensuing silence. "No, that was real."

He felt her try to lift off him, but she didn't put much effort into it, and he held her down close to him. _"I thought so, since I could remember the details. But I hoped…"_

"Stop, let's figure that out right now, okay? When you were in my dream, you told me you were putting some space between us. I appreciate the gesture, but I think you were taking it a little far. Were you really just backing off, or were you trying to leave but felt you couldn't?" Flufftail snorted, as if the answer was obvious.

" _No, I want to stay!"_ She drew her head back again to look him in the eyes, her own damp. _"I take it all back, I can't be distant anymore! Not now that you're back, after I thought I lost you. This is the closest we've been and—"_

"Hey, hush, quiet now, don't get all worked up." Agitation or stress might worsen her condition. Michael thought it best for the both of them that she stay as calm as possible. He regretted not learning her physical quirks before. He knew how to calm down his Ninetales with a well-placed scratch or knead, but he had no clue how to handle Latias. "I told you it wasn't right for a pokémon to be a romantic partner, but despite what you might have gone through with Clayton, the alternative isn't drifting apart. There's other ways you can be close."

Her gaze shifted focus between his eyes. He could almost feel her slowly putting it together through their bond. Something about her ordeal must have opened their connection to the point he could pick up traces of her own mind through it. _"But what about Cathy?"_

Michael let out a single laugh. "She's gone, don't worry about her." Latias' eyes went wide, but he continued without further comment. "Even if she wasn't, do you really think I'd only accept one person or pokémon close to me? If it was a competition, both of you would have lost to Fluff before you had a chance, and he can't even speak."

Latias looked over her shoulder at the Ninetales. _"He does love you, and enjoys your presence. I remember when you were talking to him, the night I left. You two are so comfortable around each other."_

"I love him, and I wouldn't know what I'd do without him. Love isn't all about romantic connections; just because you had to act that way, as someone else, for Clayton doesn't mean that's how it always has to be. Fluff is my family all the same. Spark too, even if she hardly cares to show it most of the time."

" _What am I?"_

"You've said it yourself before. We're partners. Just not in the way you were for Clayton, not that it diminishes for that. Not just mine, hell, I think Fluff would adopt you if he could, despite being a fifth your age. He's been worried about you, you know, ever since you left the house."

" _I guess he has,"_ she said, still looking towards she could plainly see it for herself, though to his human eyes the fox's silent stare revealed nothing, inspired a note of jealousy. She looked back at Michael after a moment. _"He does care about me as family. I think that's what I've been looking for. I want to be part of a family."_

"I think you've earned a spot for yourself in ours just the way you are, and I wouldn't want anyone else in that place."

She tipped her head down and opened her mouth slightly. That gesture he recognized, even if it had been a while since he'd seen her smile. She pushed herself close to him and wrapped him in another hug with her short arms. _"Thank you so much!"_

He returned her embrace. "Hah, don't mention it. Just a few things though. First, now that you're here, don't ever worry about being cast out, okay? Don't get jealous of anyone who shows up, because they can't threaten you." Behind Latias, Michael could see Flufftail lay down on the bed, and he swore he spotted what must be a vulpine grin.

" _Sorry,"_ she said, matching tone pure apology, but her body language told him she was still reveling in her newly-bestowed status.

"Seriously, listen, this is important. You can hang around all you like, and do whatever you want, just don't put yourself in the way, okay? Fluff spends so much time near me, but he rarely interferes. Spark is always off in her own world but she's sure not to drag me into it. There's room for all of us, even on this little boat, if we can all respect that."

He managed to win back her focus; he could feel her attention shift when he felt her tilt her head behind his. _"Okay, I can try."_

"Stay out of my head when I ask, stay out of my way when I want. I promise you, if I need my space, I won't need it forever. There's going to be boundaries though, and a lot of them we won't know until we hit them."

" _I think I can teach you to block me now. For real, not just with noise. That should help."_

"I can definitely feel something there, so maybe it's possible. Just don't get antsy when I do. If it's something important, I'll talk to you about it, like we're talking now. Last but not least," Michael pushed Latias back and grabbed her head between both his palms, giving her a look of mock intensity, "nobody gets to be a part of my family without a name."

" _What?"_ She blinked at him twice, and he could no longer feel the gentle motions of what he assumed were her thoughts.

"We named my kids before they were even born. When each one got their own Vulpix, the first thing they did was name them. Everyone has a name as soon as they're welcomed. I've picked one out for you, after some digging." He waved a hand towards Nola's book, standing up against a wall at the back of the desk. "How do you like 'Alata'?"

" _It doesn't sound like a human name."_

"It's not supposed to. You don't have pretend to be a human anymore." She said nothing, still looking at him with a quizzical expression, but he could feel the mental motion of her thinking again. "It was the name of an old ship," he continued. "She got caught up in a bad storm off Palatine Point during a journey across the ocean between Kalos and Hoenn. Many times weary crew were thrown overboard, only to be hauled back onto the ship by unseen forces. When she made it out of the storm without losing anyone, they called it a miracle." He scratched her head at the base of one ear, "You called that house a misery magnet before, and I thought it'd be a good reminder that this place is not all wrecks and sorrow. Besides, I think you know a great deal about unseen forces."

She pushed her head out of his grip and nuzzled his cheek _"When I was putting everything back together, I remembered I didn't want one. If it means I've a family now, I'll gladly accept the name you've given me."_

Relief and pride swelled within Michael's mind. His hands pushed gently against her chest, but he could feel the damaged scale-feathers there. He shifted his hold to her shoulders and pushed her back a little farther. "I don't think you'll be going unseen for a little while, though."

Alata floated up off his lap and looked down across her chest. Clumsy claws fussed about delicate structures, surveying the damage, as Flufftail roused himself back to a sitting position and poked his nose around them now that Alata was in his reach. The whirl of her thoughts through their bond accelerated. _"I can't go outside like this!"_ She turned herself invisible, the damaged portions of her coat throwing a riot of color over a vulpine face when they could only manage tinted translucence. _"Maybe I can adapt it somehow, if I—"_

Her head snapped back up, wide eyes staring at Michael. _"I can't remember. I can't remember how to look like her."_

Michael held a calm smile while her mental whirl became a tempest in its frantic activity. "Calm down, I have a solution for you. A gift, hopefully paying back what you've done for me." As he reached for his newest project, her mental disquiet continued, but outwardly she forced some composure, saying nothing. "I'm sorry if a collar reminds you too much of captured pokémon, but you're all neck and I couldn't think of any other way to keep it close to you."

A thick silver medallion, formerly a timepiece, sat affixed to a black band of synthetic material. A thin chain of blued steel replaced the more ornate and less rugged silver that formerly attached to it, threading through loops on the band and ringing around the collar entirely. Once Alata stopped fidgeting, Michael replaced the diagnostic collar with it, closing the buckle at the back over her spine before clasping the chain to the silver shell over her throat. It fit her well, despite his fears about its bulk.

" _It's a little heavy,"_ she said, after some experimental movements, _"but manageable. What does it do?"_

"It will free you from having to worry about pokéballs or my machines or anything like that, but I need to do one final step. I need to make everything think you're my pokémon. I told you before that I wasn't interested in owning you, and you trusted me then. Do you still trust me?"

Alata resumed anxiously fidgeting, but slowly nodded her head. _"I do."_

"Alright. Stay calm and stay still. This might look frightening, but nothing's going to happen to you." Michael picked up the storage controller from the desk, and pointed it at Alata at an angle that wouldn't include Flufftail. At the push of a button, it bathed Alata in a red cone of laser light for a couple seconds. When it vanished, leaving behind a distinctly nervous dragon, he looked down at the bracer's screen.

[NEW POKEMON REGISTERED]

[COMMUNICATING…]

[ACCEPTED. ID ASSIGNED: A11D114BF4B0AEE3]

Michael grabbed a thin cable from a box of leftover parts while the device processed the new information. With it in hand, he flipped the display over to his trainer info.

[1: 7D6CCF98FDBED6EB]

[2: 525644AEAA4DC7B9]

[3: A11D114BF4B0AEE3]

[4-6: NO DATA]

[GIVE A NICKNAME TO YOUR NEW POKÉMON?]

Michael smiled and put in her new name. Then he flipped the device to a special command mode, plugged one end of the cable into it, and kneeled down in front of Alata. Popping open the shell on her collar revealed a small disk of circuitry surrounded by a rubber gasket. He gently pried it halfway out and plugged the other end of the cable into a port on the side. A couple commands programmed the circuit with Alata's data. He then reseated the circuitry and gasket before closing the shell again.

"As long as you keep that collar on you," Michael said as he returned to his seat and placed the cable back in the parts box, letting his hand linger inside, "you won't have to worry about anything sucking you up. It broadcasts a signal that tells everything around that you're assigned to a nearby pokéball, but that pokéball doesn't actually exist. If anyone looks into it, they'll be pointed to my name as if I caught you. As long as that collar broadcasts, you're untouchable." When he pulled his hand from the box again, he tossed a pokéball from it at her. Not until she was once more bathed in red light did she realize what happened, and a split second later the light ceased. The ball remained inert on the stateroom floor.

She looked between Michael and the ball several times. _"Telling me was enough, you didn't have to demonstrate."_

"I've been demonstrating as soon as I put it on you," Michael pointed up to where a black bar ran across the top of the stateroom's doorframe. "The whole boat's wired up to its own miniature storage system, so I can shuffle the Ninetales to shore and back easy. These detectors are in many more places than just that one room in the house. You trusted me not to snap you up, and I never did. Now with that collar you don't even have to worry."

The slowing whirl of her thoughts told Michael she was calming again, but he felt bad for frightening her with the trial and reveal. He changed the subject. "That thing is pretty sturdy, with the two different fasteners it should stay on through any aerial or aquatic maneuver. As long as it's closed, it should be waterproof down to about thirty meters, which isn't as good as most pokéballs but I didn't exactly have precision manufacturing to work with. The seal puts a lot of pressure on the latch, so it shouldn't pop open randomly. If anything does happen to it though, come back and see me immediately."

" _I don't think I go that deep for fish, so it should be fine. How do you know how far down it can go?"_

Michael shrugged. "I put a circuit inside and tied it to a fishing pole with a sinker. Once I found a depth from which it returned dry and functional, I put the real deal in."

" _That doesn't sound very rigorous,"_ Alata said, as she watched Flufftail jump down off the bed and bat the inert pokéball over to Michael's chair.

"Well I did it eight or ten times. I have confidence in my work."

" _I'm not sure I do,"_ Alata replied. She adjusted the collar and resettled it before looking back up at him. _"But I appreciate it. Thank you very much."_

"Just paying you back for saving me. You don't need to be disguised anymore. You can go around town, no invisibility required, while your feathers heal or whatever."

" _They'll fall out when new ones grow in. They're already loose now that they're not attached to the others."_ She was silent a moment, claws still holding the collar. _"I don't think I'll use a disguise anymore even when they're replaced. Now that I have this I can actually interact with the town, instead of just observing from afar. I think that'd be nice."_

"You know, I was thinking something similar myself several hours ago. When we're through with all this, maybe we can hit the town and actually check it out, instead of an aimless scooter-tour."

Alata looked around the stateroom, before drifting over to one of the windows looking out towards the house. _"What is 'all this' anyway? Why are we here and not in there?"_

Michael sighed and bent over to pick up both the pokéball and discarded whiteboard. "We're waiting for Steven to come back. This time, we'll record his aggression, and maybe find a way to subdue him. Turn it all in, let the authorities handle it, and solve that problem for good."

" _No!"_ She sent the objection so strongly Michael jumped as she whirled to face him. _"Let's get away, go somewhere he can't find us. Find somewhere safe!"_

He looked at her with a resolute expression. "I've looked for a place my problems can't find me for years now. It led me here. Now that this place is threatened, this time I'm going to stay and fight. Besides, I thought you'd want to protect it, isn't that what you've been doing for a decade now?"

She darted over to him, stopping nose-to-nose. _"I'm not going to let holding onto my past take you away from me again, not when I just got you back."_

Michael crossed his arms and met her stare. He couldn't tell if she was referring to her period of staying away from him after the night she left, or if she was still caught up in the false knowledge the prior attack left in her head. The latter represented an obvious risk. "If you fight, are you going to get hurt again like last time?"

Her expression softened. _"What are you asking?"_

"If you don't want to leave me or lose me, stay and help me fight. Is it still dangerous for you?" She floated before him, wordless, but he could feel her mind going full tilt again.

Eventually she huffed and looked to the floor. _"The hole is still there. I've been working on closing it since I've been out, but it'll take several days of concentration to finish it. Starmie pulled back as soon as you started fighting, though, and this time I'll be prepared. I'll be fine."_

"Hold up, what hole? In your mind? Where it attacked you before?"

" _I don't really want to talk about it. Looking back, it's really stupid of me, like a lot of things I've done relating to my life with Clayton."_

Curiosity burned, but Michael didn't want to make himself a hypocrite when he'd been earlier discussing boundaries. "Alright. If you think you'll be fine, I'll let you handle it, though your past claims on similar matters have proven suspect." Michael softened his own stare. "This means you're going to be in another pokémon battle. I know you've been avoiding those, even in the wild."

Her reply was almost inaudible to his mind's ear. _"I'll do my best."_

"If you want, I can try to train you. At least get your confidence up for the times it's needed, like this."

Alata didn't respond, instead drifting back towards the porthole showing their house. Flufftail, who had listened to the battle discussion with ears pressed back and tails twitching, decided it was a good time to leave the room and head to bed. Michael sighed and ran a hand through his hair, thinking about how to navigate these two pokémon's intransigence. "Fine, we'll save it for tomorrow. I was going to get three more hours of sleep before getting up for real. How much do you think you'll need?"

" _Body rested while I was out, and I don't think my mind can get much worse than it already is. I'll be okay with just as little."_

"Alright. I'll let you keep this bed at least, I'll go up and sleep in the lounge." Michael turned off his laptop and set the next alarm on his phone. While continuing to pack up his workspace, he could feel Alata's thoughts spinning up in agitation again. He slowed his progress as he started packing the box, anticipating some interjection.

He wasn't disappointed. _"Wait."_

"Yeah?"

" _I hate myself for asking, but you always sleep with your Ninetales. Can you stay here?"_

Michael abandoned the mostly packed box in favor of a seat on one corner of the bed. The request wasn't unreasonable; that she compared herself to his Ninetales rather than anything else inspired confidence that she was now more aware of her position. "Only if you tell me why you hate yourself for asking."

She drifted closer to him, but still kept a fair distance, eventually settling on the opposite corner of the foot of the bed. _"When I was fixing stuff in my head, I was also thinking about a lot of things. You can get a different outlook on memories when you have to put them back together. Looking back across my memories in hindsight, I could see I was wrong to approach you like an extension of the life I had. Since I thought you were gone forever, I regretted that I could never tell you how sorry I was. I am very sorry, and I can't thank you enough for giving me a second chance."_

She flopped onto the bed, her nose ending up a hand's width from his thigh. _"Even when I can re-arrange my head, I can't change myself at a whim, I can't change what comforts me. The physical affection – I'm surprised and grateful you've provided so much tonight – is a large part. One of my biggest comforts was always waking up next to a friend; that kept me with him even through the miserable last few years of his life. Since I've been alone, I've missed that the most, and sleeping in a pile of cushions carrying a psychic echo of his presence was never a good substitute."_

After a heavy sigh during the last sentence, she paused a moment before continuing. _"I hate myself for asking because it still treats you like part of my old life, but I have to admit I envy you and your Ninetales. You have each other every morning."_

Michael matched her sigh with one of his own, and scratched her head behind her ears and around the base of her skull. "I haven't been in that house very long, and going to sleep surrounded by nearly twenty tails is a pleasure unique to my time there. On this boat, they always sleep in the bunks down the hall, each in the bed of the child I gifted them to. Maybe they do it for the same reason you did, maybe that's just a pokémon thing, but I was gearing up for an awfully lonely night here."

He felt her tilt her head up under his hand, and he looked down to meet her hopeful gaze. "Sure, I'll stay here with you. I'd be happy to."

* * *

Alata's eyes snapped open. He was gone. It was over.

The sound of breathing drew her focus to a body beside her. He was right here. Everything was alright.

As the quietly chiming tones that woke her up slowly intensified, the rest of her mind caught up. Michael hadn't died, that was one of the un-facts she was stuck with. The half-a-dozen of them left behind were stubborn things. Despite their absurdity – of course she had a bond-mate, the channel was right there – every time she tried excising them, they would reassert themselves through echoes and ripples their absence left behind. She'd have to get used to it.

She'd slept and awoken naturally this time, and felt refreshed for it. She angled a wing up to lift it off Michael's body, the only physical contact they'd had after bedding down. Rather than massage his consciousness to alertness, Alata floated up off the bed and out of the stateroom. She wasn't sure if Michael had genuinely wanted her there, or merely humored her after her convalescence, ignoring for a moment his emotions at the time. Best to leave early in case she'd deluded herself about what her sixth sense reported and the latter was true. She had failed to heed its warnings about Michael's state enough times already, and given this second chance she couldn't afford to make any more assumptions on that score.

Waking reservations quickly fell away as she drifted into the lounge, brightened by sunrise. Second chance? Hardly. It was a fresh start, the sun peeking over the horizon greeting not just a new day but a new self. Her life didn't have to be a continuance of her past when she had something better ahead of her, a perspective she only managed to see after yesterday's violent jolt. She'd been making herself miserable by clinging to a dysfunctional past life because it was less depressing than her current circumstances, and she'd been making Michael miserable for it too. She'd leave it all behind.

Squinting against the rising sun, she looked to the house that appeared as a shadow beside it. Well, she'd leave most of it behind. That was Michael's now, it could stay.

Alata drifted through the boat in an ascending full circle, placing her under the two-part hatch that led from the pilothouse to the flybridge. After taking a few moments to figure out how it opened, she emerged onto the open-air top deck, the sound of her arrival drawing Sparkles' attention. The Ninetales looked over her shoulder at Alata from where she occupied the further of the two chairs at the control console. After recognition bloomed within her mind, her head returned to its resting place on the wall of the flybridge, looking south. Alata could now confirm Sparkles' indifference to her was not an error of memory reconstruction. Despite the not-quite-warm welcome, she remained hovering just under the partial roof. She enjoyed the sun's warmth shining on her, but looking out across the water reminded her how hungry she was. Sometime today she'd have to visit the reefs.

While she wondered what the Ninetales' food tasted like, Flufftail joined them on the flybridge. This Ninetales did feel joy at her restored condition, and the overriding concern of the night before had been eroded away by sleep. Flufftail practically pranced to the space under where she hovered, and stood on his hind legs to try and reach her with his snout. Alata shifted her position in the air to hang upside-down and touched his nose with her own. She relished his enthusiasm about her presence, and wondered just when it first blossomed. She'd spent too much time focusing on Michael alone, and had a lot of catching up to do with the other members of her new family.

" _Latias?"_ Michael's voice surrounded her.

" _Since you've given me a name, shouldn't you use it?"_ she sent back, making sure it sounded playful rather than reproachful; she liked the name and wanted to hear it more.

She drifted down and hugged Flufftail's back when he resumed his natural four-legged stance. Between them, the silver shell fixed to the front of her collar pressed gently against her throat. Her name and her collar, a rite of passage and a ticket to freedom, a promise of a better future and a promise of a wider one. She'd been given so much last night she still couldn't take it all in.

" _Sorry Alata. Where'd you get off to?"_

" _We're all up top,"_ she replied, noting the faintest whiff of amusement in Sparkles' mind at her and Flufftail's closeness.

" _No invitation for me? Is it pokémon-only?"_

" _Get up here, sleepyhead."_

She could hear from below and track with her emotion-sense Michael's progress through the vessel. _"I suppose showing my face can't hurt now that the sun's up. Lying in wait can resume after a little fresh air."_ Though she welcomed his approaching presence, she also had to admit to herself she liked the quiet with just the two Ninetales. Catching up with the four-legged family would have to wait.

Flufftail reacted similarly to Michael's appearance as he had when he saw Alata up here. Michael, smiling, dropped to one knee next to them and wrapped them both in a big hug. Sparkles got affection of her own when he dropped into the chair at the center of the console, beside hers. "All in one place. This is rare enough, huh?"

" _Hasn't happened since you thought I was a dead person,"_ Alata replied. She followed Flufftail's gaze and looked down to an iridescent feather that had fallen to the deck.

"Shoe's on the other foot, now."

Alata didn't expect the remark to sting, and she knew he didn't intend it to. She didn't reply to him, instead telekinetically lifting the feather to his face. He examined it closely, but she could see his mind was still on their first encounters. "If you have problems writing, why did you never use telekinesis like this? You can move enough grass to make your illusions realistic, one pen shouldn't be a problem."

" _I told you, I'm not strong like that. I can pick a pencil or pen up but I can't put enough pressure on the page to write. I could hold a hundred pens and achieve just as little. I can lift up many more feathers that those, but I can't do anything with them besides clump them up and push them around, or bend them."_ One of the white feathers in his hand became red, then shifted through the whole spectrum before returning to white.

"I wonder if your telekinesis is something we can train too. Or maybe I can find a pen that'll work for you."

" _You said before I shouldn't worry about it. I like using my voice a lot more anyway."_

"Just a thought," Michael replied, and tucked the loose feathers in a pocket. He put his feet up between the wheel and the throttle and seemed to relax, but he kept glancing back to the south. Alata could tell through his thoughts that a lot of his spare attention was given to the fight he knew was coming. The Ninetales' emotions also carried anticipation for the upcoming fight, but foremost notes of hunger.

" _Why don't you three eat? I can keep watch up here. My head at least can still turn invisible."_

Michael looked at her with an expression of mild disappointment. "I thought we were all having a moment here."

" _They want to eat and I bet you're going to as well, soon. I'll get something for myself later, but for now I can stand guard while you all take a break."_

After a sigh, Michael stood and walked towards the hatch, pausing to produce a bulky object from a pocket and place it atop the console. "One of these days I'm going to get you to eat with us, even if just so I can be sure you eat at all," he said, while aligning it to point towards land. "Let me know if you see anything weird."

Alata focused on her emotion-sense, seeing how far she could reach out with it, feeling everything from the two Ninetales passing her for the hatch, to the… huh. _"Well, there's one thing. There's a pokémon in the tree at the base of the hill. It's not Starmie, but I'm not sure what it is."_

"Keep an eye on it then. I'll send Fluff up to relieve you soon." Michael followed his two other pokémon down below.

Alata settled into the chair Sparkles vacated, cloaking her head and wings. She basked in the sun's warmth against her left side and contemplated her position. New perspective, new family, new responsibilities. She'll embrace them all.

* * *

"You ate hours ago, but you still smell like seawater."

Alata pulled back from Michael's shoulder _"Sorry?"_

Michael spun his chair away from his laptop screen, which currently displayed an interesting assortment of writing implements. His smile reinforced for her the humor in his emotions. "People normally bathe after the ocean, not in it. I wonder how much salt is built up beneath your feathers." She patted herself down as if trying to hide some patch of sea salt that was immediately visible, drawing a laugh from Michael. "We'll give you a good scrubbing sometime, but not tonight. It's already late."

" _How do you clean the Ninetales?"_

He leaned back in thought. "Well, Spark isn't too much of an issue. I have to wash her under the shower, because if I leave her in the tub it'll freeze over, but besides that pretty normal. Fluff is more interesting."

His delivery suggested some joke was being kept from her. _"Interesting?"_

"Well, I buy a couple gallons of isopropanol, a big pump sprayer, and get him dripping with the stuff." He smiled a manic grin. "Then I set him on fire."

Alata's eyes widened in shock, and she spun in the air to face the cabin in which their subject slept. _"What?!"_

"Well, he sets himself on fire, usually. He loves it. Gave us a fright when we first found out though. Finding your new Vulpix taking a nap in a fireplace is one thing. Finding him taking a nap in a lit fireplace is totally different."

She looked back to him, still wearing her shocked expression. He just laughed again and spun back to his screen. "Don't worry about it for now. Whatever grooming habits you have are effective enough, you're not nearly as bad as those two can get. Especially Spark, after a more adventurous day. You have no idea some of the things she can dig up."

As if on cue, Sparkles appeared in the doorway, overflowing with eagerness, and let out a clipped howl. "It's like you knew," Michael commented to the Ninetales, before he froze. He looked up at Alata. "Are they here?"

She focused her emotion-sense towards the house's driveway, and sure enough, found two human minds. One was Steven, the other she didn't know. As they passed the tree, the mystery pokémon within grew excited. Maybe they really had been watched this whole time. _"Yes, they're here. Steven and one other. We should go."_

"Go out to meet them, yes. Don't get cold feet on me now." Michael stood and quickly moved out the stateroom door, banging twice on the open door to the Ninetales cabin as he moved down the hall. "Up!" Sparkles followed close behind him, and when Alata passed the door, she noticed a groggy Flufftail slinking out of the lower bunk. As he climbed the stairs at the hall's end, he punched a command into his bracer. "Your collar is still working after your little dip, Alata. Don't worry about anything the trainers might throw around."

The four of them gathered in the unlit lounge, its windows still tinted from the day's activities and mirroring the darkness of the night outside. "Alright, we're going to make this as fast as possible. Steve's brought help, Spark I want you spreading hurt across however many they have. Gleam should work, use it often. Fluff, focus on burning down whichever you think is strongest, I'll leave the decision to you. Work down the newcomer's roster one at a time" He looked up in the dark, "Alata, do you think you can take Starmie again? You'll know when it's trying to make a move on us."

" _I'll try, but I don't know. I only made it out because you distracted it last time."_

"Hrm. Okay. Spark; first thing I want you to do is put Starmie to sleep. Alata can do her thing after that and you can bright out to your heart's content." Michael paused for a moment. "I'm sorry to put you all in this spot, but we need to end it here and now. We did it before, we can do it again, especially now that we're all together at once. Alata, we'll move when you throw up Protect. Let's go."

As the two Ninetales followed Michael out the door, Alata realized she wasn't as nervous as she thought she'd be. Michael was right; when they were all together nothing could go wrong. If anything happened to her, she'd be protected by the others just as she had before. The thought gave her more confidence as she followed them out.

The tall, lanky man beside Steve threw out two pokéballs with a casual underhand as soon as they came into view. Two flying creatures emerged, one clearly avian and the other a bat-like creature with large, round ears. Alata fetched their species from Michael's memory; Honchkrow and Noivern respectively. As soon as they flashed into existence, Alata could feel Flufftail's emotional signature shrink almost to nothingness. Looking closer, she could see a vast sea of simmering wrath, waiting on some hair-trigger to explode. Beside him, Sparkles was all confidence, so sure of victory despite her earlier defeat that she succumbed to a supreme calm. The two of them looked the perfect exemplars of their types, emotional fire and ice. An object thrown on a high arc drew her attention. The pokéball came down a great distance from the encroaching pair, and from it emerged Starmie. The two fliers quickly caught up, and for several tense moments, nobody moved.

Alata felt the faintest of psychic probes outside her mind.

As soon as her Protect bubble came up, both foxes and fliers leapt into action. She watched through its golden-green translucence in awe, until a psychic strike hit the bubble's mental shadow so hard she jumped in fright. When she dropped the now-compromised barrier, she was overwhelmed by the burning hatred Flufftail exuded for almost everything around him, and her eyes were drawn to his form. His tails glowed with purple fire, and he tracked the Honchkrow eagerly. A flash from the Honchkrow's mind told Alata it saw some sort of opportunity, and it dived at Flufftail's position. The Ninetales calmly stepped back, and as soon as the bird hit the ground, he unleashed upon it eerie flames from every tail, engulfing it in fire that neither smoked nor charred but caused Honchkrow pain all the same.

A glint in the sky brought Alata's attention upward. Noivern hovered with its wings covered in a metallic sheen, eyeing Sparkles hungrily. She was too busy staring at Starmie, her intent unknown to Alata. Sparkles then never saw Noivern dive, and couldn't dodge the bat-creature. It struck her square in the back with both wings, hitting Sparkles and shoving her to the ground hard. The fox regained sight of her mark however, even in a crumpled heap under the Noivern, and her confidence remained as miraculously unbroken as her spine. Soon Starmie turned towards her, as if her survival was an aberration. Sparkle's eyes flashed, and Starmie's core blinked out. The water-type fell to its back on the ground, and Alata couldn't detect its mind any longer.

The lanky man barked a command Alata couldn't interpret, and Noivern launched up off the fallen Sparkles to focus on the other Ninetales. Flufftail lost his focus on his quarry for a second when he witnessed his partner's condition, and Honchkrow used that brief pause to strike again, bowling into him in a low arc and sending itself and its vulpine target into the side of the porch foundation. As soon as the black bird lifted off again, Noivern sliced its wings through the air, sending a screeching air current plowing into Flufftail. Though his rage reignited, it fed into a newborn disorientation from the sudden assault, rendering him momentarily unable to act.

Sparkles regained her feet, and the sight allowed Alata to regain her confidence. Shaking off her stupor, she looked to her target, still inert on its back. Now that a significant fraction of her feathers were damaged, her instincts screamed at her to defend herself by disrupting her target with them. A quick telekinetic tug freed as many as could be readily removed, and she pulled them together into a compact mass. At the same time, ice crystals formed in a cloud around Sparkles as she watched the two fliers return to a combat-ready position.

The battlefield exploded into an impossible lightshow. Alata's light-bending feather-ball threw off rainbows in all directions, while an eldritch un-light issued forth from ice-prisms Sparkles summoned. She threw her ball at Starmie while Sparkles' fey assault washed over the fliers, drawing primal screams from their throats. Unlike Sparkles' attack, however, Alata could see no obvious effect from her own move. Feathers stuck across Starmie's surface, and she was sure that upon waking the pokémon would be at least distracted, but she'd hoped for a more obvious effect. Instead, she started accumulating a charge for a lightning strike, as she had the last time they fought.

Flufftail finally regained his senses, and spread his tails to draw an arc of purple light behind him. At its flash, Honchkrow fell from the sky as a flaming meteor, spreading motes of black and purple flame when it hit the ground. It stood back up and looked as if it was going to take off, but Flufftail's arc of light flashed again. Alata saw Honchkrow's mind implode on itself, and even its emotional signature grew hot to her mental touch. The ghost-fire quenched itself, and Honchkrow's mind was snuffed out with them. Moments later, the pokémon flashed out of existence as it was called back to its ball.

She decided she had pulled enough charge by then, and drew them together over Starmie. The bolt blasted home, crashing directly into its inert core. Her results boosted her confidence further, but it quickly fell again when she saw its core ignite again.

Starmie woke up.

It took stock of the battlefield quickly, and locked onto Flufftail. Its rear section began spinning, drawing a ring of vapor around its tips. Alata telekinetically flexed the feathers latched around its core, and she could feel confusion surge through Starmie's emotions. Even still, Starmie unleashed a massive blast of water on the fire-type. Despite a lack of focus causing much of the stream to miss, it still hit Flufftail with enough force to push him back into the foundation behind him. In the ensuing cloud of steam, Alata felt Flufftail's mind collapse into unconsciousness.

Starmie turned towards Sparkles even as she blasted a bright blue beam towards the hovering Noivern. Sparkles drew a streak of ice crystals across its chest and one wing, causing it to plummet to the ground. On impact the ice crystals shattered, their shards lacerating Noivern and multiplying its agony to levels enough to force a blackout and a quick recall. When Sparkles turned to the one remaining target, Starmie had already charged its next attack. Alata manipulated the feathers near its core again, prompting once more a loss of focus as it unleashed its brilliant blast. Like its water attack, however, even an unfocused beam was enough to knock out its victim. Even to the end, Sparkles' thoughts were defiant.

Panic gripped Alata; she was left without allies against her opponent once more. No pokémon would appear to help her this time. She hastily drew down another lightning bolt in her fear, but it struck a meter and a half off its target, leaving Starmie unfazed. As Alata felt Starmie extend its psychic probes once more, she felt a mounting pressure to break and run.

Behind her, determination burned within Michael's emotions. He was staying here to fight, he said he was done running. He'd made a big deal about her saving him, but he saved her too, instead of just leaving her where she fell. After all he'd given her since, the least she could do was stand by him once more. There still was a threat to her bond-mate, and she was still determined to prevent that any way she could.

As Starmie's probes turned into spikes, Alata reached out and grabbed them. A psychic shoving match ensued, but much like last battle's brute force matchup, she was at a disadvantage. With a scrap of reserve strength she reached out for her distant feathers and tweaked them.

As it lost focus, Starmie's psychic spikes collapsed into nothingness.

The jarring sensation of losing her mental grip dragged Alata's attention back to the physical world. After realizing she had just foiled an attack, she threw her Protect bubble back up, preparing to resist another. An attack never came, however, and when Alata looked back out she could see Starmie looking healthier than moments before. Her bubble collapsed for being held too long, and she braced herself for another psychic assault.

Instead, the tell-tale vapor ring appeared behind Starmie. Alata had just enough time to disrupt Starmie's focus again before she got blasted with a huge cone of water. She bit back a cry of pain that would accomplish little but drowning, as it burned the hole in her outer coat over her chest. The rest of her feathers locked together tight against the water pressure, as they did when she dove; rushing water was nothing new for her body. By the time the blast died down, she hovered exactly where she had before, shaking her head to clear water from her eyes and ears, and staring Starmie down once more.

Her attacker paused, and she felt its confusion that its second attack had as little effect as the first. Alata quickly gathered a charge, but was more careful where she allowed them to connect. In the delay caused by her foe's stupor, she blasted it with another kilometers-long hammer blow of electrons. Starmie's slowly spinning rear section locked up under the strike. From its alien mind she detected the first hints of panic, and seeing it dispersed the remains of her own.

She watched its mental composition again, expecting it to revert to its previously more successful strategy, and so she almost missed the bright white flash from its core. Moments later she was bathed in an impossibly bright light, burning her eyes as much as her skin in the brief moments before she reflexively closed them. She tried to angle her feathers to reflect it away, but she was constantly subject to too much energy for that tactic to have any meaningful effect. Still, despite the three successive hits adding up fast, she weathered this attack too.

When she opened her eyes, however, she found she couldn't see. Afterimages of a dozen different colors stitched their way across her vision, obscuring everything from her. She could feel the path her last lightning strike took, and she could feel the position of Starmie's mind, but she had trouble lining them up. She needed some way she could coordinate the disparate mental senses she was left with, but her other physical faculties were not sensitive enough to compensate for her sight's absence.

Behind her, their view partially obscured by concrete, was another pair of eyes she could use.

" _Michael, I need your help!"_ His response was only wordless confusion. _"Come out and look at the fight, I'm blind and I can't aim."_ A strong note of alarm returned, but she could feel his emotional presence strengthen as he left the partial cover he'd been observing from. She tapped into his eyes, and though his vision was darker without her eyes' better ability to adjust to low light, she could once more see the battlefield.

Starmie hadn't moved far from her last attack, traveling only as far as a controlled tumble could take it. Through Michael's eyes Alata saw its body shimmer as it tried to restore its strength, and though it cleared some pallor, it could not cure its seized state. Scorch marks on the ground sketched a history of her strikes, and she could see Starmie's distance from her most recent impact. With this information she called forth another bolt, and Michael witnessed it hitting Starmie square on its upwards-pointing arm.

A thrill surged through Alata at the successful strike. Starmie tried to heal again, but now its mind succumbed to the electrical havoc Alata had brought to its body. It failed to take any action at all. She scraped together the last of the charge in the area, almost entirely depleted, taking her time while Starmie's paralysis prevented it from healing itself. One final surge lit up Michael's vision, and Starmie's mind winked out.

Slowly, awareness of the area outside the battlefield returned to her. Four minds remained; Michael's was behind her, no longer in cover. The lanky man stood far ahead, and his emotions told her he'd only move away further if he was capable, but he was struggling against something. The pokémon in the tree had jumped off and was approaching them at speed, but was still a decent distance away. Finally, Steven's mind had shifted to the east, presently moving up along the shore near the pier towards her and Michael.

Alata took a closer look into his emotions, and panic resurged. Steven was filled with lethal intent, this time not just as one commanding it but prepared to carry it out himself. She checked Michael's vision again. His eyes couldn't pierce the night like hers would be able to, and he hadn't noticed Steven's approach.

Still using Michael's sight to navigate, Alata fought the disorientation of movement through his eyes. She rendered herself mostly invisible as she approached the path Steven was taking, and once in place revealed herself to check her position in Michael's view. She fought dizziness as Michael's head snapped around to focus on where he could make out her white upper body, and Steven stopped in surprise as well. She shifted the feathers on the undersides of her wings to bathe him in what meager light she could reflect from the surrounding environment to highlight him for Michael. From this dull illumination, the glint of a ready blade reached his eyes.

As long as she could present a target for Steven to focus on, Michael could get away. Like before, she only had to buy him time. _"Run!"_

She pulled out of Michael's vision before movement could cause further dizziness, leaving her in multicolored blindness once more. Steven took several moments to rally himself, then his mind once more crystallized in a will to act. Alata brought Protect up moments before he struck her. She let the force of the strike propel her backwards a short distance, and pulled a wave up the shoreline to try and sweep his feet from under him. Her focus faltered when she heard two indistinct sounds to her left, and the mostly vertical distance the wave had to travel sapped its strength. She saw Steven's mind move out of its way, and lunge at her again.

Protect popped up again, on a gamble it'd weather a second strike so soon after she'd raised it before. The bubble shattered on impact, but sapped enough of his swing's strength that he missed her completely. Still, his lunge had placed him well within another strike's range. She darted backwards to try and clear his reach, but she could hear he was already moving again, maybe fast enough to connect. Her ears registered the too-close rustle of cloth, then a wet impact and a cry.

Steven growled out in pain and determination, now much lower to the ground than she'd expected. The pokémon from the tree had finally neared, and its simple mind reverberated with triumph. Alata hazarded a look into Michael's eyes again, and realized he'd moved little from where he stood before. She could see herself floating above Steven, now on his hands and knees with a white mass plastered across his back. The view shifted to a yellow many-limbed pokémon skittering towards them.

Out of the corner of Michael's eye, Alata saw Steven manage to get his hands on his knife again, and she raised Protect once more to try and block another swing. As he reared up to strike, however, the yellow pokémon launched a white projectile. The mass struck Steven in the back, merging with the webbing already there and casting out a shower of sparks. Steven shouted again as he convulsed in its electric embrace. This time when he collapsed, he didn't rise again.

Another wave of dizziness washed over Alata when Michael started running towards her. By the time he made it over, the Galvantula was already in the process of wrapping Steven in a sticky, immobilizing cocoon. In the dull light thrown off by Alata's wings, Michael could see it wore a strange helmet, and a thick blue band of cloth on each leg. When it completed its task, it used a leg to trigger some device on its helmet, causing a small light to start flashing incessantly. It looked up at Alata, chittering to itself and bathing her in the pleasure of a job well done.

She left Michael's vision again just before he arrived. Her next contact with him was physical instead of mental when he grabbed her in a tight embrace. She melted into his arms, letting her exhaustion take her now that she had support. _"Why didn't you run? I was giving you time to escape."_

" _I told you I was done with that. I was going to help,"_ he subvocalized

" _How?"_

" _Well, I found a pretty big rock."_

Alata wasn't sure she could properly arrange the mental sound of frustration she felt, so she growled aloud instead. She wished he'd pick some middle ground between his always-fleeing stance and new always-fighting mentality.

They started moving, where she wasn't sure, but their short trip ended with Michael sitting on the ground and her in his lap. He still spoke only mentally. _"Can you see yet?"_

" _No."_ The bright afterimages had faded to a thick gray haze, but it still obscured most of her sight.

Michael hugged her tighter to him. _"First mind, now sight? If you keep sacrificing things for me there's going to be nothing left of you."_

" _It's slowly getting better, it'll return. I can see in much darker conditions than you, but when my eyes are adjusted to that darkness and I get hit with something that bright, it takes a while to recover."_

" _You sound like you're speaking from experience."_

" _I used to live in a lighthouse."_ This drew a weak laugh from Michael.

" _I'll heal you up in a little bit, I think someone's going to want to look at you first."_

This suited Alata just fine. She was very tired, but also happy right where she was. _"Who is coming?"_

" _The Galvantula's owners, probably. I don't think it wants us to move far either, it keeps staring at us. When they get here I have something to give them."_

" _You got your proof?"_

" _I'll admit the video gets a little shaky after you took that knife the first time, because I'd given up filming and started looking for a way to bail you out. Good thing I set up a camera on the boat too; you and he were fighting right in front of it."_

Alata sighed in relief. At least the fight wasn't for nothing. In fact, everything turned out better than she'd hoped; they had their proof, Steven was subdued, and—

" _Are the Ninetales okay?"_

" _They'll be fine. I snatched them up into the storage system in the house when you showed me Steven was armed, I didn't want them getting hurt while defenseless. I'll let them back out and revive them when we're done here."_

—And nobody was seriously hurt. Worse potential outcomes played across her mind, and she was relieved each hadn't come to pass.

After a few minutes of resting, the sound of a siren reached her ears. Alata opened her eyes again, and though the environment was far darker than she'd seen before she lost her sight, she was able to see again. She looked towards the approaching sound, and a blue flashing light penetrated her personal gloom. She lifted out of Michael's arms and over the porch roof to get a better look at the approaching commotion.

" _Oof, thanks. You're kind of heavy, you know."_ Michael stood from where he'd been sitting against the porch foundation, and started walking towards the approaching vehicle. _"Here come the cavalry."_

" _How'd you know they were coming?"_

" _Our spider friend over there has a badge for every leg; they were already here. Just had to call for backup."_

Alata fidgeted with her collar, feeling it for any damage. _"Is my collar still working?"_

" _Lemme check."_ A softer blue glow crept into her vision from below as Michael fiddled with the contraption on his arm. _"Yeah, you're good. Keep it on you. One of the reasons I came back here instead of reporting it right away was so I could get it to you, I don't know what they'd do if I'd brought you in still wild."_

She still felt wild, she'd never been trapped or contained. This collar provided her all the perks of having a trainer and none of the drawbacks. If anyone had to be her trainer, even if only by technicality, she was glad it was Michael. She'd never before seen a captured pokémon granted such a consideration as what her collar represented.

A large SUV came to a stop outside the house, turning its siren off as soon as it stopped. Four humans disembarked; three wearing police uniforms and a Ranger. Clayton had taught her some people she had to stay away from could be identified by their clothing. Maybe he'd been wrong about that, too. A pokémon Michael identified as a Medicham followed one of the officers out. A short distance down the driveway, Alata could pick up the mind of one more pokémon, though its emotional signature was very faint.

One of the officers broke off towards where the lanky man had stood, and shortly returned. He pulled the cocooned man by a length of organic rope, dragging him across the ground to the vehicle. The Galvantula skittered over to him as he worked, and the officer stopped to give it a treat. The Ranger knelt beside the unconscious Starmie. The other two police officers moved towards Michael.

Alata planned on listening in to their conversation, but a mental presence distracted her. A thin psychic thread gently nestled itself against her mental barrier and vibrated with a wordless message. Its bearer – likely the Medicham with blue armbands currently moving towards her – was gauging her intelligence and wanted to know if she was a telepath. She had to take a moment to remember how to compose speech outside a human's mind, but before long sent back, _"Empath only."_

Medicham's emotions briefly blanked, before quickly executing a complex sequence of different emotions. They relayed a message that was also a test that was also a greeting, it demanded some sort of response Alata could not provide. When she shook off the intricate display, never having before seen someone who could use their own emotions as a tool, she composed another message to aim at the thread. _"This is the only way I can communicate, sorry."_

The thread vibrated again, but this time carried words. Medicham spoke with the mental speech of a true telepath, his masculine voice carrying tonal quirks no sound-based speech could create. _"I see. This is fine. They call me Switchboard."_ Switchboard's voice carried with it extra meaning, like she experienced in Clayton's or Michael's dream-spaces, but it possessed more than one such channel. _"[Not a problem, do not worry.] [You have a good mind-voice for a non-telepath.] [Only what they call me around the office, my name is different on the paperwork.] [Do you have a name?]"_ The message was infused with a pleasant warmth, and Switchboard's emotions shifted to compassion and friendliness.

Alata was overwhelmed by her first non-hostile experience with another psychic. That one could speak without breaching the mental barrier itself shocked her, but here she had another pokémon who clearly took great pride in their voice, applied in a very different form than she used. The fact heartened her, and she felt herself already warming up to Switchboard. _"Thank you! My name's Alata."_

The distant pokémon mind resolved itself to be a Metagross, which floated up beside the SUV before it unfolded its legs and landed, the blue flasher topping its flat head winking out. One of the officers waved it over to where they stood with Michael, and it walked over as delicately as half a ton would allow.

" _That is Steno. I will be connecting it to us to record our dialogue. [This will become a three-way conversation.] [It does not communicate well, I apologize.]"_ Switchboard's ethereal voice returned to her mind. As Alata watched the Ranger return to Starmie and recall it to its blue pokéball, a faint metallic ringing sensation entered the thread Switchboard spoke through. Focusing on Switchboard's link prevented her from catching most of Michael's conversation, but she had a feeling the Metagross was near him to remember his as well. That they were both ultimately speaking to the same thing brought her a strange comfort about the ordeal.

As if hearing her thoughts on the matter – which he might actually have, Alata couldn't be sure – Switchboard's voice returned. _"Our conversation will be brief. [Mr. Schalde will provide my colleagues with more information.] This is the second time you [individually] have been attacked by this man, correct?"_

" _Yes, but the first time was just psychic, from his Starmie. It tried to attack Michael and decided to go through me."_

The faint metallic ring resolved into something that was almost but not quite speech. _"[DETECTING COMPROMISED PSYCHIC DEFENSES. DO YOU SUFFER DAMAGE?]"_

Alata winced at the mental sound it carried. _"Only a little. I'll be alright."_

" _[ACKNOWLEDGED]"_ The not-speech collapsed once more into a background ringing. Alata squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to push its echoes out of her head. She supposed not all pokémon given a chance to speak can be skilled at it.

She only had to answer a few questions, brief as promised. The Ranger fussed over her for some time after, and used some sort of spray medicine on her to clear away most of her battle-fatigue. Despite this relief, Alata was glad when she was finally left alone.

After some time, she saw Cathy and Nola's mental signatures approach. She hadn't seen Cathy since the first attack, and despite her prior opinions of her, she wanted to know if she was alright. She knew Cathy didn't like pokémon, but she figured she could at least try.

She floated over towards where Switchboard stood near the SUV, watching the officers finish up their investigation of the area. Once he noticed her approach, she experienced that fascinating psychic thread connect again. _"What is on your mind, Alata?"_

" _Your telepathy, is that something that can be taught?"_

" _It is a natural talent, I am afraid."_

As soon as she'd learned such a method existed, she was denied it. She fought back a wave of depression. At least she knew there were other pokémon who could speak like her, now. She'd have to find some.

" _Can you connect me to the younger woman who just arrived?"_

" _I am discouraged from linking minds together outside my responsibilities."_

" _Oh, thanks anyway."_

" _I am sorry I could not help. Please do not hesitate to come back if you need anything."_

The telepathic thread withdrew, and Alata turned her attention back towards her connection with Michael. _"Cathy and Nola are here."_

" _Gotcha."_ Free of his own interviewers, he walked over to her and scratched her back between the leading edges of her wings.

She made a pleased sound in her throat and pushed back against his hand. _"Ah! There's good."_

"Huh, I'll keep it in mind. I was looking for something like that last night when you were freaking out. How are you holding up?"

" _This is very different than I had imagined my first interactions with other humans."_

"Yeah, some trip isn't it? We humans aren't always fun, though we tend not to be this unpleasant either." Michael gestured towards the new arrivals. "Speaking of, you want to see Ms. Unpleasantness herself?"

" _Don't call her that."_

"She wanted me to leave you behind, you know."

" _Out of fear, not spite. I can see that and I was hardly even conscious at the time. Her rant during the tour made that clear enough."_

"I know, just surprised to hear it coming from you."

" _We went over it last night. I told you I acted stupid, you told me I had no reason to be jealous. Wouldn't be fair of me to put it on her. Are we going or what?"_

"Yeah, sure. I'm curious why they're here anyway." Alata drifted behind Michael as he walked towards the pair, extending a friendly wave. "Do I have you to thank for this?"

Cathy shifted her weight to one leg and put a hand on a hip. "Yeah. I'm glad to see they made it in time."

"Seriously, thank you," Michael said. "I figured I was in over my head when I was about to bring a rock to a knife fight."

"Maybe you should have done it my way the first time," Cathy said. Alata could see she felt lighthearted about it, rather than resentful.

" _You two are awfully chipper about this whole thing,"_ she sent to Michael. _"Nola looks like she's going to faint."_

Michael laughed and pointed a thumb over his shoulder at her. "She thinks we're taking this too easy. Just glad it's over honestly, need to let off some pressure." With the same hand he pointed at Nola, a gesture which finally drew the older woman's attention from Alata. "You okay?"

A look of shock passed over Cathy's face when Michael relayed the unspoken message, but Nola face lit up like she'd won a prize. "I knew it. I knew the damn bastard was hiding something from me." She pointed at Alata. "That's Anne, isn't it?"

Michael and Alata shared a look before he turned back to her. "Not anymore. She doesn't have to be, and I think she lost the ability to take that image."

Nola stepped in to examine Alata closely when an officer stepped up and pulled Michael's attention away. Alata tried to stay as still as possible through the uncomfortable experience. Nola only looked away when Michael turned back to the group and pocketed a card. "Are there any others? Maybe a blue one somewhere?"

"Nope, just her."

Nola looked back to Alata, but not in such an analytic fashion. "Poor thing, must be lonely. Latias are very social creatures, always in a pack or pair-bonded with Latios, usually siblings or mates. You never see one off on her own."

"That'd explain a lot actually, she's connected to me right now."

"And I assume Mr. Georges before. Must be an instinctive thing, she bonded with the closest friendly mind she found. Fascinating." Nola did another half-circuit around Alata. "She's smaller than I imagined, normally they're a good fifteen, twenty centimeters longer. Must be young."

Alata and Cathy shared a look of embarrassment and confusion, broken when they both looked to the police SUV driving back towards town with a floating Steno in tow. _"Can you tell her to stop inspecting me like some exhibit?"_ Alata asked Michael.

"Could you, ah, step back a little? You're upsetting her." When Nola complied, he continued, "You know a lot about her kind."

"Well, Mr. Georges seemed to have an obsession. He came to the ol' town historian to ask about any information, myths, whatever I had about them. Time went on and a couple strange requests later, I started suspecting he had a lot he wasn't telling me about it, but he passed away soon after. Since then I started connecting some dots, dug up a lot of interesting things. You know your friend was notorious about twenty years ago, we had a couple straight years without a single drowning death in the rough surf of the eastern coast. Invisible arms would drag them to shore, people said. All sorts of legends popped up about that."

" _I never thought… I hoped being hidden would be enough, I never wanted notice."_

"She's being modest about it," Michael laughed. "I know sometimes she circles the island looking for stuff in the mornings and evenings."

" _I haven't really done much during them in a long time,"_ Alata said, with a note of regret.

Michael looked at her. "Thought that counts?"

"So wait, you can read her mind or something?" Cathy asked.

"Opposite actually. But no, she can talk, to me at least."

Cathy blanched while Nola adopted a thoughtful expression. "Intelligent, then. Most legends said they were clever but it's nice having confirmation."

"You're digging yourself a hole," Cathy managed to squeak out.

Nola laughed, "I guess I should stop talking about her like she isn't here. I'm sorry. You said she's not Anne anymore, does she have a name I can call her?"

"I named her Alata," Michael replied.

"So you did read my book!" Nola cried. "A fitting name. I didn't include it for lack of reliable sources, but many say that ship was saved by a flock of Latios and Latias. Now that I know a flock was around here some time, I'll add it in."

"Mom, this isn't why we're here."

"It isn't why you're here. I came to confirm a decade-old hunch. And I was right!" Nola cackled as she walked off towards the moped. "I'll leave you two alone!"

Guessing she meant Michael and Cathy, Alata turned and floated off a distance. Still, curiosity compelled her to listen in on their conversation. Now, though, she knew the step she'd been missing the times she had before.

" _Michael, can I listen in?"_

" _Don't see why not."_

Alata smiled to herself and tapped into his hearing. "Look, I wanted to thank you," Cathy was saying, "for fighting for me before. You protected me and I just left."

"Nah, we're even," Michael replied. "If you hadn't left I might not have gotten out of here. I think we balanced a lot of books today."

"If you say so. What I was hoping for between us isn't going to work out, especially now that I know you got that thing riding in your brain, but I hope you'll still stop by. I think I now know how to ruin coffee just the way you like it."

"Sure, I need an excuse to get myself out of the house, and I think your mother is going to be obsessed with me and mine for a few weeks. I'll talk to you tomorrow, but I'm pretty wiped out after today. Have a safe trip back, thank you again." Michael gave her a wave and turned up the driveway towards Alata.

" _Asking now,"_ Michael sent her. _"You're learning."_

" _Yeah, sorry."_ Alata fell in beside him as they made their way towards the house. _"We're staying in there now, right?"_

"Yep," Michael shifted to using his real voice. "I need to get the Ninetales out and heal them up, then we can probably all hit the sack then and there. I'm beat." He turned to her. "What did you think about Nola's rants? Interesting?"

" _Insulting. She reduced my whole life to urban legends and biological impulses."_

"You have to admit, you're pretty impulsive."

" _Shut up."_

Michael laughed and scratched her back between her wings again as he opened the front door. She hated to admit it, but it really did feel good, and she found herself flexing her wings down to allow his arm a better angle. "I think she just gets overeager about stuff she reads in books. She didn't mean to be rude. Why don't you head upstairs, I'll be up with the rest of the family shortly. Should I bring any medicine up for you?"

" _The Ranger healed me, I'm alright. See you soon."_ Alata complied with his request, making her way towards the bedroom. His new mattress was a proper size for the bedframe, larger than the boat's mattress he'd been using most of his time here. She settled down atop its plush quilt, relishing the fact she no longer needed to exert even the slightest force she required to keep herself aloft. Despite the medicine the Ranger had given her, she was extremely tired.

Below her, two minds bloomed into existence. One was all contemplation and satisfaction, the other was nerves in overdrive. Seeing Flufftail's emotional state now, compared to what it was during the battle, shocked Alata. She wondered what could cause such a drastic swing. Sparkles, by comparison, had hardly changed. Her mind held the pleasure of a completed job she had the utmost confidence she'd execute, despite the fact she hadn't been able to see it finished herself. At least one of them knew the outcome all along.

The nervous mind ascended first, followed by Michael, the stoic one last. Flufftail entered the bedroom looking around in a dozen directions, as if knowing something had to be wrong inside. He calmed a little when he spotted Alata, but only a little. Still, he was the first of the three atop the bed, and curled himself around where Alata lay. Michael sat on the bed's edge, scratching behind Sparkles ears with both his hands. The fey fox looked up at him smugly, her emotions painting the room several shades of I-told-you-so.

Here was her real family, all Nola's claims about flocks and Latios put to shame. She did miss her biological relatives, in the distant sense born from the passage of time and a lack of recollection, but this family cared about her and fought with her to defend their shared home. Even though she came into it all wrong, they forgave and accepted her. She'd do her best to make them glad they gave her that second chance.

That night Alata learned what Michael meant when he spoke of the unique pleasure of going to sleep surrounded by nearly twenty tails, the difference made up by two human arms.


End file.
